Sligo councillors vote against water charges

THE GOVERNMENT’S water protection strategy has suffered a setback after Sligo county councillors rejected proposals for a local system of domestic water charges in three river basin management plans.

The councillors said the proposed charges amounted to double taxation on hard-pressed families. They also hit out at a planned licensing system for septic tanks, which they said would have a severe impact on rural dwellers.

Elected members narrowly voted in favour of amended plans despite a warning from Sligo county manager Hubert Kearns that it was not open to them to modify plans which were being considered by several local authorities.

Mr Kearns told councillors that if they rejected the plans, the onus would be on him to adopt them by May 14th. “It gives me no pleasure, I have no choice in the matter,” he said.

He added that the western, Shannon and northwestern river basin plans had already been adopted by a number of local authorities.

Independent councillor Declan Bree said the process made a mockery of the democratic process. He said new River Basin District Advisory Councils which were to have been convened to consider submissions from the public had not even met.

However, “to add insult to injury, non-elected officials and consultants proceeded to produce final river basin management plans without going through due process”.

Fine Gael councillor Gerard Mullaney said they were in an impossible situation. Two years ago the media had “crawled all over” councillors in Galway after water supplies there became contaminated and if there was a bad outbreak of pollution in Sligo, people would ask why councillors had rejected the plans.

Despite warnings from the manager, councillors agreed a number of amendments and then voted by 13 votes to 10 in favour of the modified plans.

They unanimously agreed to delete references to planned legislation which would enable local authorities to charge domestic users for water use. They also deleted a reference to 31 per cent of farms being in breach of regulations on nitrates, saying this was an inaccurate figure.