I welcome the Minister and I ask him to investigate the circumstances leading to the contamination of the public water supply in Naas, County Kildare, and to acknowledge the need to review the response of the relevant authorities to that incident with a view to minimising the risk to public health in the future.
It is obvious from the Minister's attendance here that he attaches importance to this matter because I realise that other pressing matters exist which demand his attention. We must sympathise with many people in Naas who suffered as a result of this incident. Large numbers of people were directly affected by sewage contamination of the water supply; it was reported in the press that up to 3,000 people in the town were affected. Schools and schooling were disrupted and there were significant effects on the commercial life of the town, on pubs and restaurants, etc.
It is important to sympathise with those who became ill as a result of this incident and I am sure the Minister would share that view. By any standards it was a very serious incident. The question arises as to how it happened in the first place, how the relevant authorities responded to the situation and if their response was adequate. What can be done in future to prevent a recurrence in Naas or in any other town of such an incident? There are lessons to be learned here which could be applied universally.
There is no great need on my part to catalogue the events. I am sure the Minister is already well aware of what took place. It all began on 7 October last and has already received widespread press coverage. The county engineer, Mr. Carrick, in communication with the county manager reporting on the contamination problem at Sunday's Well in Naas, said that first complaints were received on Monday, 7 October that the water supply was smelling and was not satisfactory. Further complaints were received on Tuesday, 8 October and the supply was switched off at approximately 11.30 a.m. on that day to enable investigations to take place and an alternative supply from the regional scheme was switched on.
The sad sequence of events has been well documented. Sunday's Well was used as a principal water supply until about 30 years ago when a switch was made to the Blessington Lakes and about 40 per cent of the town's water supply came from Sunday's Well at the time of the incident.
Why was it decided to switch back to Sunday's Well? Was it a question of cost saving? Why was that done in the knowledge that sewage lines lay adjacent to this water supply? The decision must have been ill-advised given the amount of housing development in that area. Even if there were good grounds for making the decision to have Sunday's Well supply part of Naas's water, how could any planning authority permit a sewer adjacent to a town's water supply? Have deficiencies in our planning system allowed that situation to arise? That is a serious question. This well — as I am sure most wells are — is in a depression and it is susceptible to contamination from surrounding areas.
There appear also to have been deficiencies in the construction of the sewer. In the county engineer's report it is stated that when surrounding sewer manhole covers were checked it was discovered that a blockage had occurred in a line which ran near the well. The report goes on to say that when the blockage was cleared up the inspection of the manhole indicated that seepage could have occurred through the walls of the manhole into the surrounding ground. That is the background to the incident.
We come now to what happened after the incident took place — the response of the authorities involved, which were Naas UDC, Kildare County Council, the Eastern Health Board and the Department of the Environment.
Is the Minister satisfied that the 1986 guidelines from the Department of the Environment for emergency planning to protect water sources were first fully implemented and, second, in the light of this occurrence, that those guidelines are adequate? I realise that they cover a number of points and their intention is to protect water resources and the drinking water supply. Do they, as a result of this incident, now need to be reviewed? Were they adequate in the first place?
The local authority response was to send communications around to houses; advertisements were placed in the paper together with frequent information on news bulletins on CKR Radio. On 8 and 10 October people in Naas were advised to boil their water, a reasonable precaution. Subsequently they were asked to boil their water for no less than ten minutes. My information is that some houses were omitted when this information leaflet was distributed which indicates defects in the response mechanisms for incidents such as this.
Furthermore, on 17 October the Eastern Health Board advised people in Naas whose children had not been immunised against polio — there would not have been many in this category — to obtain such immunisation. People were already frightened and concerned about this matter and this directive frightened them further. Were there sound reasons for issuing that directive, although I take the point that it is wiser to anticipate disaster than try to rectify it when it happens?
Later, people were advised to clean out their tanks, which is a possibility for tall people like the Minister, for fit people or younger people but there are elderly people who would have great difficulty in carrying out that directive and assistance should have been provided to them.
When the water supply was eventually declared safe again there were widespread concerns and a lack of confidence in the local authority. I, and other public representatives, were asked by people in Naas to approach the county manager to ensure that water tankers being used to supply fresh water would stay on the road for the approaching bank holiday weekend. The county manager did accede to those requests and the water tankers remained available.
I have gone through the 1989 legislation on water pollution to see if anything in it might impinge upon this situation but I cannot find anything relevant to it. The Bill seems to focus on the responsibilities of the individual and of groups to the State but excludes the reciprocal responsibilities of local authorities. There is the same onus on a local authority as on an individual or group to ensure that a water supply is not polluted. What recourse have the people of Naas after this incident. Their rights are not covered by the local government legislation. The minimum that might be done for these people would be to waive water charges for the coming year. If people get a service they should have to pay for it, but if what they get amounts to a non-service and has endangered their health, it is unreasonable to ask them to continue to pay for it. I believe that if they are asked to pay they are very likely to say that they will not. I see serious problems arising here.
I appeal to the Minister not to ask the people in Naas to pay the service charges. I understand that, under the estimates, the water charges in Naas come to £190,000, a significant amount of money. In the event of those charges not being collected the local authority would need to be compensated. The level of confidence of the people in their local authority is so low that they are very unlikely to see any reason they should pay these charges.
The people of Naas are entitled to assurances that the infected water supply remains disconnected, that it will no longer be used to supply any water to Naas and that the situation will continue to be monitored. Since viruses like hepatitis take time to incubate, a monitoring system must continue for some time. There would then be follow-up checks of the water supply to ensure it is of drinkable quality and not a risk to public health. In relation to confidence in the local authority there is widespread suspicion, however with founded or ill-founded, that all the facts have not been revealed. More positive information must be given to the population.
One person in the medical field in Naas told me today that the problem had not gone away, but it had been alieviated. There is a distinction. I would ask the Minister to institute some form of inquiry — it should be a public inquiry — and all the information that derives from such an inquiry should be made available to the public. There are lessons to be learned from this unfortunate incident and other communities could benefit from the results of such an inquiry. The priority must be to protect the health and welfare of the people of Naas. They must be confident that their water supply is of the highest quality, that it is drinkable, and that it is not a risk to health. We must move to restore their confidence in the local authority.
