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Water and Sewerage Services (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 2006

I thank the Minister once again for clearly introducing this order. I support it in principle, particularly Schedules 3 and 4—which I hope that I have got right. I hope that whoever is put up as the rate charging agency—RCA—performs considerably better than the agency that currently collects rates. It has failed on a number of occasions and has caused myself and itself embarrassment on a personal front, which I will not go into. Speaking as a farmer, I hope that the enforcement of this order and future orders on water and sewerage will be more readily, more quickly and more thoroughly enforced. We have some pretty bad examples of sewerage and chemical discharges. We had very fine publicity for one of the worst beaches in Europe not long ago, if I remember correctly. That sort of thing is simply intolerable for Northern Ireland, particularly with its growing and badly needed tourist industry. In principle, I support the order. I just raise the issues of better enforcement, stronger enforcement of the environmental regulations associated with water and sewerage, and better attention to leakages. I have also had problems with significant leakage and being charges for water that my and other people’s cattle could not possibly have used, but the comeback is unbelievably cumbersome if one tries to improve anything. I sincerely hope that that will not happen. I imagine that communities, if not every house, will be fitted with water meters in due course. I wonder what the costs of that will be and where it will lie. Having said that, I support the order.