Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to change the subject matter to housing, which is a very pressing matter in this country. My concern relates to the lack of wastewater treatment plants in our towns and villages in our country. I know that back in April 2022, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage announced €50 million in funding for wastewater treatment plants. He asked every local authority to submit two proposals so that they could be assessed. Today is 11 October, and we still have not seen any of these projects progressing. I know that Galway County Council submitted proposals for projects in two places out of 38 that require wastewater treatment plants. One of them was Clarinbridge and the other was Craughwell. There are 36 more villages and towns that are frozen out of the planning system because they cannot get planning permission to build any type of estate there because the wastewater treatment plants are not there.

I will concentrate on Craughwell for a moment because it is in my own constituency. It was 1998, when Galway won the All-Ireland final, 25 years ago, when Galway County Council first made a proposal to the Department with responsibility for housing to build a wastewater treatment plant in Craughwell. Today, we have housing estates that were built with package treatment plants which have reached the end of their lifespan. They are not being maintained, there is nobody taking responsibility and it is being thrown back on the residents. Irish Water will not touch them and Galway County Council says it is Irish Water's problem. At the same time, there is raw sewage pouring out of these during the winter when the water table is high.

This is an environmental issue and a housing issue. If we keep trudging along the way we are going, we will not be able to achieve growth in these centres, which are going to serve the likes of Galway city. We need to have houses in areas like Clarinbridge, Abbeyknockmoy, Corrofin and Laban to serve Dexcom, which is coming to Athenry. We need to make sure we have housing and people living close to these centres of work. At the moment, in my village of Corofin, you cannot build a house in the village where we have prime land ready for development. The reason is because An Bord Pleanála has decided that any development is premature pending the completion of a public wastewater treatment plant.

At the same time, we have five housing estates, together with a local authority housing estate, working on package treatment plants, which are, as I said, an environmental issue as well as everything else. The €50 million that was put in, and I say this in honesty, would not even cover the cost of what needs to be done in County Galway. I have spoken to officials in different local authorities around the country. I suggest that €500 million from the national development fund that is being created in the budget would help to set out a plan by which we would get rid of the existing package treatment plants as well as provide the infrastructure necessary to start building houses in our communities.

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