Amendment No. 1 is in the names of Deputies Ó Broin, Gould, Cian O'Callaghan and Matthews. Amendments Nos. 1, 2 and 4 are related and may be discusses together.
Water Environment (Abstractions and Associated Impoundments) Bill 2022 [Seanad]: Committee and Remaining Stages
Section 1 agreed to.
SECTION 2
I move amendment No. 1:
In page 9, after line 37, to insert the following:
“ “exceptional circumstances” has the same meaning as it has in section 177(2) of the Planning and Development Act 2000 (as amended);”.
Before the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, came into the Chamber, we had the conclusion of a debate on a very significant and complex piece of legislation. In marked contrast to this Bill, that piece of legislation went through all the Stages of the legislative process with adequate time for very serious consideration and deliberation. As a consequence, there was virtual unanimity in terms of the passing of the Bill but also in the view that the Bill was the most robust piece of legislation possible.
This is a hugely important Bill that we all want to see passed and that we should have had more than a decade ago. If it is gotten right, it will greatly assist not only the State but the citizens of the State, communities, businesses and farming communities in their proper management of our natural water courses and all the benefits that has for society. We took quite a considerable amount of time on Committee Stage for pre-legislative scrutiny. On its completion, we issued the report to the Minister in December 2021. Since then, we have been waiting for the Bill to return.
I completely understand there is a requirement at this time of year for emergency amendments and emergency legislation to come through. For example, we just dealt with amendments on which we may or may not have agreed with Government, but there was a logic to their emergency nature. This legislation did not have to be brought forward in this manner.
I know the Minister of State is not the lead Minister on this and that he is standing in for the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, who is away doing very important business in terms of biodiversity. We could have had a full Second Stage debate this week and the Bill could then have been treated properly in committee early next year. We could have had possibly two to three committee sessions early in the new year to tease this out. The reason is not just the amendments because we can go through some of those amendments now. One of the real values of the committee, which the Minister of State will know because he gave us a considerable amount of his time with legislation that fell under his portfolio, is that we tease things out in that forum. All of us and members of the public who have access to the records of those committee meetings in terms of the maritime planning legislation, etc., benefit from those exchanges.
Here we are with significant legislation which will affect millions of people across the State. We have 35 to 45 minutes to go through this. This is not the Opposition coming in at the end of the year to give out for giving out’s sake. This is not a good way to do business and it should not have been done on this Stage.
One of the biggest disappointments in relation to this group of amendments and the next is the significant number of amendments ruled out of order. That is the privilege of the Ceann Comhairle and the Clerk of the Dáil but if we had more time we could challenge some of those because it is the strong view of many of us that it is a very stringent ruling. We could have challenged the Ceann Comhairle to reconsider and might have been able to have a more substantive debate on those but have not had time.
Probably the most significant area in which the Bill is lacking, to which some of these grouped amendments speak, is with regard to thresholds. The key thing in an abstraction regime is if the thresholds are wrong, you do not capture everything. The poor old Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, did a valiant job on Second Stage when he was thrown in at the last minute. He made the wonderful admission that minutes before coming to us he had to google “impoundment” because he did not know what it meant. He gave us a nice definition. We had a Second Stage debate with a Minister of State who is not even from the Department. This is no disrespect to the Minister of State present or to the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan. I understand the latter is doing important work but we are having a pointless Committee Stage with a Minister of State who has been thrown in at the deep end at the last minute with a tiny amount of time to consider and tease out very technical details. If the thresholds many of us have argued for - a registration threshold of 10 cu. m per day and a licensing threshold of 250 cu. m per day - are good enough in the North and operate perfectly well there, as well as in Scotland and other places, and if, particularly in respect to the licensing regime, it provides a far greater level of understanding of what water has been taken out of the natural table at any point in time, I cannot understand why it is not here. It is something which, unfortunately, we will have to return to.
My amendment is probably in the wrong grouping, which probably reflects the fact the poor old Bills Office is under enormous pressure to get this in. This amendment relates not to Nos. 2 and 4 from the Regional Independents but to other amendments elsewhere. It relates to the retrospective environmental impact assessment provisions of the Bill which seem to be an attempt to replicate the substitute consent provisions we have recently dealt with in the Oireachtas. The problem is the said provisions do not have the clarity required, not only for those interpreting the Bill but also to be fully compliant with our European obligations under a variety of directives. The Minister may not know the detail of this but when we were doing pre-legislative scrutiny, our committee commissioned a significant report from the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers, OPLA, on the extent to which the legislation was compliant with a variety of EU directives. We did that because we had expert testimony before the committee which said it was not. I was taken back by the OPLA's advice, which was on the general scheme and not on the final Bill. In a significant number of areas the view - not of an NGO or somebody independent of the Oireachtas, but of the legal advisers to our committee - was not that many of the provisions of the general scheme may be in breach of EU directives, but that they were in breach of them. We will not have the time as we go through these sections to tease out the extent to which the hard-working officials in the Department have resolved those issues.
We want to support the Bill and will not vote against it but there are serious doubts over its legal compliance, right down to the thresholds. The thresholds are not an arbitrary level that is set. If the thresholds are not set in compliance with the aims and objectives of the directives in question, we could face enforcement action. We have a bad track record. The Minister of State knows that because in our committee we deal regularly with infringement proceedings against us on wastewater treatment and a variety of other areas in relation to water. I would be interested to hear the Minister of State's response to some of the amendments but given that, I presume, he has no familiarity with the Bill, he will read the script, we will respond and we will move on to the next one.
There are occasions in this House where debate is not adversarial and the general view of Members concerns getting the best legislation possible in the best interests of the country. On the basis of the information I have in the limited time we have had to scrutinise this, I do not believe this legislation does that. It is a shame because for the sake of a couple of weeks and a couple of sessions, not on the floor of the Dáil but in committee, we could have teased out these things and potentially highlighted issues to the Minister of State which he could have resolved on Report Stage. We have been denied that opportunity.
If there is infringement action from the European Commission against us for failure to comply with the directives in question, I want it on the record of the Dáil, even if very few people are listening, that we highlighted this concern, it could have been avoided and we would have worked co-operatively with the Minister of State to address that. I hope that does not happen but, unfortunately, it could.
My amendment No. 1 seeks to insert a definition to give greater clarity to the exceptional circumstances relevant to the exceptionality test with respect to the retrospective environmental impact assessments for major abstractions that are already happening and that will be subject to an application for licence.
I do not think this is the way to do legislation. This Bill arises from the water framework directive that the European Commission adopted 22 years ago. It signalled in 1996 that it would bring forward such a directive. It does not make any sense for it to have taken this long for the State to bring forward this much-needed legislation, for us to have concluded our pre-legislative scrutiny report on this a good while ago and for this all to be shoehorned into a very short period of time, literally 45 minutes with 41 amendments submitted, of which a few are ruled out of order. Some of those ruled out of order are highly significant to the core issues, which means the Oireachtas does not have the opportunity to debate them. For the sake of a few more weeks, this could have been concluded on Committee Stage in early January and passed thereafter very quickly. I do not understand it.
It is more frustrating given that the Minister of State has done some very good legislative work with us, spent much time with us on other legislation and done excellent work on building cross-party support. It cannot be the situation that stuff like this where there is not agreement and which is more controversial gets rushed through, whereas the stuff on which there is more consensus has more time spent on it. All the legislation is important but the Minister of State has shown his capabilities and skills in terms of the legislative process. All the legislation from this Department needs to be treated in the same way and there is no rationale or justification whatever for the State to take this long to bring forward this Bill or to shoehorn Committee Stage into 45 minutes. It makes no sense.
The work we did in the Oireachtas housing committee relates to this amendment. As Deputy Ó Broin said, we got advice from the OPLA and from external organisations with expertise in the area to the effect that the Bill is potentially in conflict with several European Union directives and with European Union law to which we are signed up. That is particularly worrying and it is worrying we are not getting the time to talk that through. Since 2007, the European Commission has been engaging with Ireland on what it considers to be Ireland’s incorrect transposition of the water framework directive. Water abstraction is important, can be carried out for important and necessary reasons and can have huge consequences if it is not managed correctly for our environment, biodiversity and habitats. Given climate change, the impacts of water extraction will increase as time goes on. That is why this is so significant and should be given the proper time and scrutiny.
Only two of 13 recommendations in our joint Oireachtas committee report were fully implemented in this. I am concerned that the thresholds are out of line with other European countries, particularly our neighbouring countries, which have similar conditions in terms of water environments and levels.
We have not been given a good rationale for that. We were told by the Minister of State who was present on Second Stage that there was a scientific basis for that and I asked that this would be shared with us before Committee Stage. I took from his comments that he was assuring us that would happen but I have not seen that a scientific basis for this. If the Minister could comment on that, that would be useful.
Article 11(3)e of the EU water framework directive is clear that member states cannot exempt themselves from controls relating to abstractions or impoundments that have no significant impact on water status. They can only do that when there is a significant impact on water status. That is why the threshold is so important. I am trying to address retrospective issues in this key amendment.
Like other Members, I think the way that this is being rushed through the Dáil is crazy. There is nothing to say that in January we could not go through this thoroughly. The Minister of State seems to be putting stuff in. He comes from a farming background as well. Thresholds will be put in for farmers to get licences. It is like driving a car. The day you have to get a licence for something is the day that you could lose it and you become vulnerable to the State. While you have to get one to drive on the road, the bottom line is that we should encourage farmers. Instead of sending the water down through the rivers and the lakes, first, they should be able to harness water and, second, if there is a river running through their land, they should be encouraged and should get a grant to take the water before it is treated to give to cattle.
I am chairman of a group water scheme. For the life of me I can never understand why we send the water through the dearest process because we have to do it to EU regulations and have chlorination, UV treatment and the sand system. We have make sure that it is 100% right, and rightly so. I agree with all that. However, then we have to send it back up for cows and bulls in fields or sheds to drink. This is instead of encouraging farmers. If you bring a pump and you come out from a river and you put pea shingle down, you could have a lovely little system that would look after the farm. We should be grant aiding that instead of frightening the daylights of the farming community. In fairness, the farming organisations have been involved in this but it does not seem like anyone is listening. It just seems that it is being rammed through whatever happens and the consequences will come later.
The Bill is giving the right to Irish Water to rise the levels of anything they want. That means that if someone has land beside the water, for example, they could be flooded out of it. It is happening on the Longford-Roscommon-Leitrim border where farmers say the River Shannon could be down but it is higher in the dam where they are taking the water out. That cannot continue and they cannot keep doing what they like. This is giving Irish Water such powers that they will nearly own the water in every river and lake in the country. That is not tolerable.
The other issue that is not defined in this Bill is that the catchment area of group water schemes are not accounted at all for. Basically, Irish Water will rule it and they will have the rights to it everywhere, but what about the catchment area of the group water schemes? This is the time of year that a bit of common sense should kick in. The Minister of State should pull back and give space to this Bill so that we go through it meticulously. We are not in here tonight at 9 o’clock or later to just make our points on something. We are in here because there is a genuine concern among constituents and farming organisations. The Government is going around saying how they are listening to the farmers but they are listening much in this Bill. There needs to be a bit a of step back so that Bills are not driven through and guillotined so that the Government can add up the number of Bills. They say that they are great because they have gotten 39 Bills in the past while but the issue is the loopholes and the damage that this will do down the way.
We are very far fetched at the moment. We will dance according to anything that Europe sends over and we will jump as quickly as we can. We seem to love this Europe that seems like it will nearly dictate how we will sleep in our bedrooms. Whatever they bring in, we have to do it. It is about time that we start thinking of our own people in this country. Everyone wants good water and nobody disagrees with that, but nobody wants their land flooded because some genius somewhere decides that we have a huge storage. I say openly that I have no objections to bringing water from the River Shannon to Dublin, not a bit in the world, but I also say that they had better fix a lot of leaks in the city. All of this must be balanced. There are 66 plants that are on life support in Leinster and we have to make sure that we have water and I agree with all of that. I am not a naysayer about this, but I have problems with the big powers that were given to the likes of Irish Water over our rivers, streams and lakes around the country. I worry about that. This will cause problems down the way. People will be deciding to go in and check every bit of water. The River Island near my home has been deemed one of the cleanest rivers in Ireland and there are heaps of farmers along it. They respect it and they look after it but when they see the likes of this Bill coming and they have to get a licence for X, Y and Z, we are nearly starting to put them through every rigour of systems. If this is what the EU is about, I would question them because we should not take everything they throw over to us sitting down and say, “Well, sure we will do this because it is great”.
I do not know why this Bill has been given the time it is being given. It should go through Committee Stage in the normal way that it goes through, as it should through all the different Stages of debate because we are talking about the water of the country. We should give more time than this. Even some of the Government Deputies are not happy with the Bill, but the Chief Whip will whip them into line. I ask the Minister of State to rethink where we are going with this water abstraction debate.
We were all very complimentary earlier on tonight on the Bill regarding maternity and many other pieces of work that the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, has done before he took over his position, but this is crazy. As I said last night to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, Deputy Fitzmaurice called them “Bills”, but I am calling them “Acts”. The backbenchers were boasting that the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, had brought forward 22 Acts, but he is not in the Gaiety Theatre or the Abbey Theatre. These are the Houses of Parliament where we are supposed to have proper scrutiny of legislation. It is like John Wayne in the old westerns. They should not be notches on your belt. This is gung-ho. This is crazy.
With the indulgence of the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, my late father-in-law, Nicholas Sherlock was chairman of the Tydavnet group water scheme in County Monaghan, with Seán Clerkin. It was one of the biggest, most successful schemes serving more than 600 houses. I know I am cutting short, but it was a wonderful scheme and they still have control over it but they are not being respected or supported at all.
Irish Water, Uisce Éireann, Ervia - call it what you like and give it new fancy Irish names - is running amok and doing what it likes. In deference to Deputy Fitzmaurice I have problem with pumping water from the Shannon to Dublin when there is 48% leakage. The leaks should be fixed first. I am not anti-Dublin at all but we have a huge issue with water. I said here this morning during another debate which was 12 hours ago or more, when we were speaking about climate change that I remember as a buachaill óg breaking ice on the ponds before the cows went out from the cowhouse after being milked. I broke it with sledges, which were 7 lb or sometimes 14 lb and we could hardly lift them. They were needed to break the ice because they were so thick. We are being attacked and indoctrinated in all measures in that way as well. Irish Water has too much control. We have clean rivers and streams.
We all want clean water. I fully agree with Deputy Fitzmaurice in that we take the water from source and pump it to the treatment plant, costing a fortune. Of course, Irish Water is free to everybody except businesspeople and farmers. The cost of water was never explained in that debate with "Big Phil" the enforcer, as I called him at the time, the then Minister with responsibility for water, Phil Hogan. The cost of extracting it, pumping and treating it and then pumping it on and maintaining the service is enormous. There is no such thing as free water. I used to get water with my older brother, using a horse and cart and pumped from the side of the road into barrels, to be given to cattle during a heatwave. It could not be done at times. Water is a valuable resource and it is great to have it, but it must be respected.
Irish Water cannot get all these powers and the same is true of the ESB. The Minister of State knows much more about what goes on in the Shannon than I do, given I only hear about it when I pass through and see the flooding, and when Kevin "Boxer" Moran was Minister of State, I listened to him talk about it. With the way the river is maintained, with the levels, the dams and so on, the farmers suffer. Instead of the carrot and stick, we all the time seem to use the bata mór. We are demonising farmers. It is very odd at this stage to find a careless farmer who might have slurry spills, wastage and that sort of thing. No farmer is going to spread slurry on a wet day. It is all calendar months now, which is crazy. It should depend on the conditions as to when a farmer spreads slurry, whenever he or she wants to do it to get the maximal benefit without run-offs. They do not want to have run-offs. Now, there are calendar months and it is all EU decisions. We need a special office to be set up here for BS detection in respect of what comes from the EU, and I will not describe what I mean by "BS" because most people will understand it and it would be unparliamentary of me if I did. It is shocking. Every farmer should be able to get water from the river passing by the land and use it. It is not long ago that cows, bullocks, sheep and the whole lot stood in the river and drank from it. My son farms sheep on the Knockmealdown Mountains. Those sheep get their water from the little streams, they are happy and they graze, and they are the finest sheep you will find.
One day, a man came into my office in Clonmel and said he and his brother had made their living out of catching eels in the River Suir and selling them to The Clonmel Arms. Unfortunately, The Clonmel Arms is now a derelict building, which I mentioned earlier. Now, the man said, there is not one eel in the River Suir. There is a brand new treatment plant like that in many other towns and the water is crystal clear, but what the hell are we treating with, given there is no vegetation or eels or anything else in it? Are we doing more harm than good with the filtration process, what we are adding to the water and the ingredients that go into it at those treatment plans? I think we are. Something has changed if there is not an eel, a trout or any other fish in the river south of those treatment plants.
Damage and pollution is being caused by villages. In my county, I could name 30 villages that have spewed raw sewage into rivers, and the EPA is supposed to be a monitor. I met its representatives one day at the River Suir in my village. They were checking things, and I asked whether they would not move 200 yd downstream. There was a full outlet pipe from a big tank. It was an ordinary thing with no treatment, belching into the river. People are sick and tired of this. It is all stick, punishments, labelling and licensing for farmers, and the EPA is turning a blind eye to the biggest polluters of all. It is happening on the coast here in Dublin, in other cities and in many other places, and we are losing our blue flag status and everything else.
My family are traditionally potato growers and there were a couple of dry summers in recent years when they needed large volumes of water to irrigate the land. I swear to God they could not get it out of the river. I am not saying they were going to drain the river dry and leave no water for the fish. They are not reckless, but they could not get water there without a licence and permission. Deputy Fitzmaurice is correct. I would not go as far as extending it to bedrooms in houses but certainly, Big Brother is watching where we wash, work, play, rent and everything else. Many was the day when we had no running water and we did it all out under the bushes, amuigh faoin spéir.
I think this was probably the first legislation on which the committee carried out pre-legislative scrutiny, in October or November 2020. It is no coincidence that the amendments submitted by Deputies Ó Broin and O'Callaghan and me are all virtually identical. I suggest that is because we met, and carefully considered the proposal with, representatives of An Taisce and the Sustainable Water Network, SWAN, two organisations for which I have great respect. I joined An Taisce about 20 years ago because I firmly believe in the work it does and the interests it has in maintaining and protecting our heritage, planning system, environment and water, along with SWAN. During the pre-legislative scrutiny session, when we spoke about registration levels, that is, the level at which an abstraction should be registered, it was said clearly to us that the registration process was not onerous in any way and would not impact on somebody who was abstracting or be an unnecessary administrative burden on the EPA, Irish Water or whoever might be set the task of doing that. I have yet to receive a substantial answer as to why we are going for a 25 cu. m registration level unlike other jurisdictions, as has been mentioned, that are very similar to ours, with similar pressures on water, hydrological cycles, geology, storage issues and so on. I hope there will be a substantial answer to that during this debate because I am very concerned about it.
I understand why we are going to enact the Bill, namely, because of that EU infringement whereby we do not have a proper water management and abstraction regime in this country, which is what we are putting into place. I expect this will satisfy that EU infringement but, in the back of my mind, although we cannot tell what the future will bring, I think at some point the water management and abstraction system we put in place will also be subject to an infringement when the EU decides that the figure we chose was arbitrary. I do not know the science behind it, but I would subscribe to the saying regarding any environmental management system, whereby if you cannot measure and monitor, you cannot manage. It is a duty on us, not just during this debate but among this generation in general, to manage our water quality and resource. Water is a finite resource; we cannot really make more of it. We are putting tremendous strain on it from various sectors, with the use of water and the discharge of wastewater treatments to watercourses.
I hope the Minister of State will provide a substantial response to that issue because I have concerns about it, which I raised on Second Stage. It is important that we have a management system in place and I welcome the fact we are doing that, but I have serious concerns about it. A limited period has been allocated for this debate and I do not know whether we will get to all the amendments, but it is no harm to state clearly in legislation what is expected in terms of environmental assessment and to state clearly the requirement for mature impact assessments, or at least appropriate assessments in the first instance. That focuses the mind for anybody who is considering legislation. We know we have to do that and we know, if something is likely to have an impact on a Natura site, what is required. Indeed, we know what is required for environmental impact assessment thresholds, but it is important to state that in the legislation. It may not be necessary to do that, but it sharpens and focuses the minds of people who will consider the legislation, which will be in place for many years, long after many of us are no longer Deputies.
I thank the Deputies for their views, some of which were very contrasting. I value them greatly. The Bill is a response to an EU infringement case and is a key environmental management tool to which we are trying to respond.
This is focused on large-scale abstractions. The ESB and Irish Water would be required to register for all the major abstractions they carry out. Therefore, it is for really significant abstractions. Some 99% of water abstractions in the country are covered by these mechanisms which is a very significant point.
I shared with the Seanad a response to the charge that the pre-legislative scrutiny recommendations from the committee were not taken into account. The reality is that a number of the recommendations from the pre-legislative scrutiny formed part of the response in shaping the Bill. I would be happy to share that analysis with the Deputies and send it to them tomorrow.
Regarding the charge about farmers and ownership of Irish Water, I believe Deputy Fitzmaurice raised that. Obviously, it is not giving up ownership of water. The key thing is that this will now be under significant regulation. The Department also engaged with the National Federation of Group Water Schemes and the EPA. As Deputy Matthews knows, those were key considerations and the EPA decided on the level of the abstractions of 25 cu. m to be appropriate. He will also know that the Act gives it the power to reduce that more should the EPA make a recommendation in that regard.
The Bill went through Cabinet in the summer and has been on a journey. I absolutely hear the Deputies' comments. I was not deeply involved in the Bill's passage. I absolutely understand where Deputies are coming from. I hope some of those responses shed some light. I will also forward that report to show how we took into account the recommendations of the report of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage.
That would be helpful. It would also be very helpful if the officials could share with the Oireachtas committee a response as to how they dealt with considerable legal concerns the OPLA had. I know the Minister of State does not have the legal advice because it is confidential to the committee but I am sure we can provide him with either a summary of it or, with the agreement of the committee, a copy of it, given that it is the Government. I think the committee would like to be reassured of that.
I will make two points because we have very little time left. A good water abstraction regime is good for everybody. It is good for the small farmer. It is good for rural communities. It is good for large urban areas. It is good for businesses. Deputy Mattie McGrath made a very important point, which is actually an argument for an abstraction regime. We are now having more adverse weather events. Deputy Mattie McGrath mentioned droughts and reduction of water supply from natural watercourses, but there are also floods. Obviously, that is a direct consequence both of climate change and the historical mismanagement of our natural water system. Therefore, if we want to ensure people have access to that vital natural resource, we need to be able to measure it. We need to know what is happening. This is not about stopping anybody accessing anything. It is about making sure that on the basis of the priorities we set as a society, those who most need access to the natural resource of the water systems, whether they be people, businesses, ecosystems or the natural environment, get access to that.
It is important to remember what the thresholds are. The Minister of State is right that 95% of water abstractions will be registered. All that means is they will be registered; they will not be licensed or monitored. The only abstractions that will be required to be licensed are abstractions above 2,000 cu. m per day. That is equivalent to the daily water usage of 18,000 people. That is not big; that is enormous. That does not refer to cumulative abstractions beside each other; it refers to single abstractions. That means that the vast majority of abstractions, including large abstractions, will not be captured by the licensing and will not be monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency. Therefore, we will not be managing it properly. I absolutely share Deputy Matthews's view, which is if we do not account for the abstraction, we will not be able to manage into the future particularly as the impact of climate change becomes more adverse.
Who will be the big losers? It will be rural communities in the first instance - the people who are more dependent on the land for their livelihood than those of us who live in the big urban centres. It will be the small family farmers in more isolated rural areas and it will roll on from there. The argument that a threshold of 2,000 cu. m is appropriate is not the case. During the committee sessions it became patently clear why that threshold has been set. If it was set any lower, the Government would need to resource the Environmental Protection Agency better. That is really the argument and that would mean that staff and resources would be needed. I urge the Minister of State to convey to his colleagues that given that the threshold will be the threshold, we need to ensure that at a minimum it is properly policed and managed.
We will not get to the other amendments but decisions on licensing, decisions on exemptions and decisions on the continuation of historical abstractions must be made in a way that is absolutely consistent with the water framework directive. I wish to respond in a very collegiate way to Deputies Mattie McGrath and Fitzmaurice. I am an exceptionally strong critic of many aspects of European integration. However, just because something has its origins in European Union, it does not mean that it does not have a value.
Nobody can accuse the Irish Government of rushing the abstraction legislation. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan outlined the 20-year wait to get us here. This is an eminently sensible and urgently required regime if we get it right. I urge the Minister of State in whatever way he can to convey the sentiments of people here which is to have an abstraction regime that works and one that protects urban and rural communities, businesses and, crucially, the natural environment and our biodiversity. Let us not be coming back here in some years' time with amending legislation at the last minute because we are open to yet another European infringement proceeding and millions of euro of taxpayers' money is being wasted when we could have fixed the problem this time around.
The Bill briefing was produced by the Oireachtas. I certainly never said that all the recommendations from the pre-legislative scrutiny report were not implemented. I said only two of the 13 were. That was confirmed by the Bill briefing we got. That briefing provides much of the rationale and feedback from the Department. That should already be available to Members. I welcome that the Minister of State will share that, all the same. Some of the key recommendations in that report were not taken on board.
This should not be about compliance with EU law or EU directives. This should be about doing what is right for us as a country to ensure our long-term sustainable access to water. This is very important especially for farming communities. If this is not well regulated and well done, farming communities, who are on the front line in terms of water resources and care of the land, will suffer most from this.
We have been asking for the science or the evidence base for setting the thresholds. If we could get that, it would be very useful. I understand that a threshold of 2,000 cu. m means that a town the size of Nenagh would fall into this, but anywhere below that in terms of daily water intake would not fall into it. This means that enormous abstractions would not be required to have a licence. This is very hard to understand, especially given just how important this is and the knock-on impacts it can have for communities, businesses, farmers and everybody else.
There are crocodile tears for small farmers and ordinary people. I remind the House that the only people now paying for water in their taps are the farmers, publicans and business people. They are the very people paying for water and so it is easy to have crocodile tears. If this is only for towns the size of Nenagh, why does a farmer extracting water with a 2,000-gallon tank to irrigate his potato crop - perhaps to save it - need to get permission from the council? It is a case of Big Brother watching. According to Deputy Ó Broin, not all legislation emanating from Europe is bad. I am not saying that everything is bad. However, we have fines from a European court and we are being hauled through the courts. I can already see here tonight the seeds of the next government being sown with Deputy Ó Broin moulding his way across the floor here and irrigating the roots with water, whether it be from Irish Water, from a mountain stream or any place else.
The seeds are being sown. All one needs to do now is to nurture them, give them a bit of 10-10-20 and perhaps a bit of other fertiliser which will certainly be environmentally friendly. We cannot use dung because that might give off an odour that might upset the Green Party. My learned friend above told me that he agreed with me for the first time ever.
Dung can be very useful.
I know that. The only people paying for water today are farmers and businesspeople. That should not be lost on anyone here and nor should what it costs to produce water. Crocodile tears are being shed here for people and in respect of this legislation, which is going through with the support of the new Government partners. We hear rumblings from the Taoiseach - soon to be Tánaiste - that we are set to have a game of musical chairs next Saturday. They will all do business together. The plant should not be given too much water, however, because the clay might be rubbed away from the roots. Perhaps those opposite do not understand horticulture that much. Maybe they do. I am not being disparaging or saying that they do not know. A little water, like in your whiskey - uisce beatha - or anything else is important, but too much makes it very weak and feeble.
This legislation is bonkers. Deputy Ó Broin mentioned the EPA in the context of controlling matters. The EPA does not have enough staff. The EPA stands on the bridge in An Caisleán Nua. That bridge was mined and was supposed to be blown up in the past - thankfully, that did not happen - in order to keep you-know-who out of our rebel country in south Tipperary around the Knockmealdown Mountains. The mines were not ignited, thank God, and no one was hurt. Now the EPA is standing on the bridge, parking beside it and going down the steps and taking samples out of the river. The staff will not go down the 300 m below the outfall pipe from a belching, filthy, dirty, sewer that serves the whole population of the village and that has not been upgraded in 40 or 50 years, and that will not be upgraded. They will not go there and take proper samples. If a farmer has an accidental spill in his silage yard, if he has an accident with a barrel or if a bit of dung falls off the top of his Wellington boot when somebody from the Green Party or An Taisce, God forbid, is passing by, all hell will break loose. The Army will nearly be called in to put a cordon around the place and bring the farmer out in handcuffs.
This legislation is ridiculously mad and anti-rural. We then have the crocodile tears from Deputy Ó Broin. The Deputy is half a Tipperary man, and he should know. Beidh fíorfháilte roimhe go dtí an Caisleán Nua agus an Tiobraid Árann. I will bring him to Bansha, Aherlow and many other places where there are no sewerage systems and where raw, untreated sewage is being belched into the rivers. Spare me all of this legislation that victimises farmers and businesspeople. Those people pay for water and everything else all of the time, but they are getting very tired of doing so.
I thank the Deputy. It pains me to interrupt him when he is in full flight. The time permitted for this debate having expired, I am required to put the following question in accordance with an Order of the Dáil of 13 November: “That in respect of each of the sections undisposed of, that the section is hereby agreed to in committee; the Title is hereby agreed to in committee; the Bill, is accordingly reported to the House without amendment; Fourth Stage is hereby completed; and the Bill is hereby passed.”
Question put and declared carried.