Galway City was due a new water treatment plant. The Minister for the Environment, whose job it is to make provision for such facilities, claims he provided the necessary finance in 2002 for the purpose. He claims the Galway local authority, failed to draw down the money and the Mayor is not fit to hold his job (the Mayor’s, not the Minister’s), on the grounds that the Mayor did not know of the Minister’s fund for the plant.

The Minister’s department seems to have been less than forthright in the information it issued to the press on the obligations of local authorities relating to public drinking water. See HERE.

Oddly, nobody in the political world has addressed the fact of the, apparently absolute, legal duty of the sanitary authority (the local authority) to ensure the public drinking water is clean and wholesome.

Breaches of statutory duty normally result in the obligation to pay compensation to the injured persons for whose benefit the duty was created.

The Minister seems to have overlooked earmarking finance to pay that compensation.