The programme for Government rightly commits to the development of our rural towns and villages. The Office of the Planning Regulator is engaging with a number of local authorities as they prepare their county development plans for the future. There is an ongoing conflict, though, whereby those local authorities are being asked to encourage people to move into our towns and villages even though hundreds of those villages are without any kind of wastewater treatment system. The village of Craughwell in County Galway has a population approaching 1,000, yet it has no municipal wastewater treatment system. When Irish Water is asked about its remit in this regard, it replies that there is no approved funding model for such situations and it has no remit to fund such schemes.

I obviously cannot deal with every single scheme but I appreciate the point that the Deputy has raised. I will speak to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage in relation to this and ask him to engage with Irish Water in terms of coming forward with some solution, perhaps in conjunction with the local authority.