THE Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, may yet regret his refusal to meet campaigners on group water schemes in rural areas. His refusal, citing a busy schedule, has reinforced a sense of grievance in the west and helped those who seek to build a common platform with television deflector groups.
Both groups have much in common their support base is outside towns and cities, in places where people have felt ignored by the political establishment for years. Their list of grievances includes small country schools which are falling apart through lack of funding, potholed roads, poor public transport, high phone charges and the closure of Garda stations and post offices.
Above all else, they are outraged at the prospect of paying much more than city dwellers for services as fundamental to their lives as water and television. These two issues have united a disparate group of people as never before. The nightmare scenario for the political establishment now is if they join forces to fight the next election.
So far, the National Federation of Group Water Schemes is playing a canny political game. Realising that the threat of a candidate is often more effective than a declared one, the federation has postponed a decision on whether to run candidates. Instead, it is carrying out private polls to assess the level of potential support.
The federation's chairman, Mr Bernard Keeley, is coming under increasing pressure from within the ranks of the federation to stand in Galway East. He gave a very political answer when asked about this at a press conference last week, stressing that such matters would be decided by individual county federations. "I certainly wouldn't pre empt the decision of the Galway federation," he said.
Television campaigners in Mayo and Donegal appear more eager to take on the political parties, and Mr Thomas Gildea has already been chosen to stand in Donegal South West. Meanwhile, there are few signs, as yet, that the parties have grasped the potential seriousness of the grassroots rebellion.
The federation has attacked Fianna Fail for failing to clarify how it would fund group water schemes. It is cot good enough for the party to outline four possible options and leave it at that, says Mr Keeley. "We are targeting no political party. What we seek is that the parties declare a policy on group water schemes. They are in the middle of preparing their manifestos; we want a section in their manifestos to deal with group water schemes."
In the absence of Government action, the federation's demands have widened to include the reform of the Environmental Protection Agency. "It was set up as an environmental watchdog, but it is a dog with no teeth," says the federation's treasurer, Dr Jerry Cowley.
He says the present position where health boards monitor water supplies on behalf of county councils and then the county councils pass on the information to the EPA, is completely unsatisfactory. "It is unacceptable that the county councils should act as a filter. The councils cannot be expected to police themselves.".
Although some group water schemes have been blamed for poor water quality, public water supplies are often worse, Dr Cowley adds. The EPA's water quality report for 1995 found that 62.5 per cent of all coliform excedences were in water supplied by local authorities.
One of the worst cases was the public water supply in Brierfield, between Tuam and Moylough in Co Galway, where the coliform content of the water was found to be in excess of 50,000 per 100 ml.
The federation wants the Minister for the Environment, Mr Howlin, to drop his aim of bringing group water schemes under the control of local authorities, except where the schemes themselves opt to do so.
Mr Keeley says this is not an attack on the competence of local authorities, but reflects the federation's fear that if the buck is passed down from central government the schemes will languish for years without repair.