I congratulate Minister for Environment, Phil Hogan T.D. for establishing a licensing system for septic tanks. Neighbours and the Community have a right to know that their water and the groundwater are not being polluted by septic tanks.

FF Deputy Leader Eamonn O’Cuiv TD, having failed to sort this out for 2 years after a European Court judgement, is now going around whipping up a septic tank campaign full of wrong facts and ‘crap’. FF should be known as the ‘Turd Party’ for supporting septic tank pollution.

The campaign says that rural people should have the same rights as urban people to free sewerage processing. They ignore the fact that urban people have to pay €7,300 to connect to main sewers, taking Wicklow as an example. This is less than the cost of a septic tank. Urban people also pay €4,650 for a mains water connection.

Septic Tanks have been licensed in Cavan for some years and I gather that even in that Counties poorer soils, only a handful have needed to replace soil at an extra cost of less than €5k. This is a total cost of under €10k whereas FF claim it could be €17k.