Mr. Jerry Grant:

Many very good questions have been asked and they cover what is at the heart of a project being successful in the planning process. This is a massive project. As Deputy Ó Broin stated, it is the third biggest project in the history of the State. By virtue of this, we cannot rush it and we must be very sensitive to the fact we are looking for a broad societal benefit which could be at the expense of communities. We must evaluate this very carefully, and this is the point of the environmental impact process, the planning process and the consultation process. I am hugely aware of this. I am also acutely aware of the impact on individual farms and farm families, because a large trench is dug for a year or two and there is a recovery period. All this must be factored in.

With regard to consultation and when reports were published, this has been under discussion for 20 years, and seriously so for the past 12 or 14 years. At one stage, economic growth was such that it looked like we would need it sooner in Dublin and we were asked to have it for 2021. I am very glad we do not need to have it for 2021 because we would not be able to get it for then. We cannot rush a project like this. Other plans, and the development of national plans, must be considered because a project such as this transcends a number of plans. Between starting and finishing, along the way it will have to be able to adapt to spatial planning, river basin planning and many other issues. We certainly have tried to do this.

Senator Grace O'Sullivan asked about per capita demand and it is exactly as she said. With metering information and knowledge on per capitausage and household usage we were able to revisit the per capitafigures. Quite frankly, this has bought us at least three years in terms of having to bring forward the project because between leakage savings and the reality of the demand figures, we will have until the mid-2020s before we reach a point when, in my view, the risk becomes critical for the country. Previously, it looked like it would be earlier than this.

When we look at the leakage question, the reality is that nationally approximately 765 million litres are lost in leakage. In the greater Dublin area the figure is probably approximately 300 million litres. Addressing this is a massive project. People speak about leakage being recoverable but we never beat leakage. All we can do is address and attack it. We must replace 2,000 km of old cast iron pipes in the city. If we were to do this over ten years we would paralyse the city. It would be like having the Luas works continuously for ten years, and this would only replace cast iron pipes and would not deal with the leaks in the service connections or the PVC pipes. We have a lot of very poor pipes and over the past 40 years connections have been rusting. We will address leakage. We have committed to taking out approximately 70 million litres of leakage between now and 2021 and we will need to do so to meet the needs of the region.

It comes down to the question of risk. I will return to a question from Deputy Ó Broin on planning and where it happens. Our job is to ensure there is enough water in every region to support the planning objectives of each region. It is not to dictate planning. If we do not have enough water in Dublin it would have an impact for sure, but this is not the way in which anyone, politician or engineer, would want to plan the country. Therefore, our job is to ensure that in the furtherance of supporting proper spatial planning water is available as required. There must be an element of speculative provision. Foreign direct investment and the development of our indigenous agrifood industry are crucially dependent on drinking water. There are many parts of the world where water on this scale would not be able to be mobilised in the public good and the common good. There are factors with regard to risk.

The report from Emma Kennedy and other reports have been referenced. We have published responses and will publish fully comprehensive responses to all the points raised because they are very important. They seek to examine getting the maximum out of the Liffey to combine with maximum demand on any given day. If we do this we will fail. It is absolutely guaranteed to fail. Even as late as last December, because we had a very dry autumn period, we were close to having to look at having to conserve water because of where the Poulaphouca reservoir was at. The Vartry was also very low last autumn. It is absolutely critical that we are realistic about the water in the Liffey. As we bring forward projects such as the river basin plans under the water framework directive, the likelihood is there is a real risk we will be asked to reduce the abstraction from the Liffey, particularly if climate change has the effect predicted. If this were to happen we would be in real trouble.

One of the considerations any first world country has in a city region is multiple supplies. It is very risky to have all our eggs in one basket, and the fact we take 40% of all the water in the Liffey for the greater Dublin area is a huge risk. Taking all these issues into account, it would be very imprudent in my opinion not to plan and deliver this project within a reasonable timeframe, but this must take regard of all the considerations discussed.

With regard to greenhouse gases and energy, transferring water from the Shannon to Dublin involves a significant energy component, but it is much less than desalination. This particular pipeline has been optimised in a way I did not think was possible. The water is being pumped to Cloughjordan on the Tipperary and Offaly border and it can flow by gravity from there to Dublin, with offtakes for the various communities along the way. It is very efficient from an energy perspective, compared with the other pipeline options we examined.

I was very attracted to the Garryhinch option, and I thought it was real runner on the basis water could be taken from north Lough Derg and we could stop taking it out during low summer flow periods, but difficulties arose when we did a detailed investigation. We would need much more storage in Garryhinch than we thought because the ecological modelling of Lough Derg, which has a very sensitive ecosystem, suggested to us we could not be sure there would not be an impact if we did not have four, five or even six months storage. The detailed geotechnical investigations showed the cost of the Garryhinch reservoir would be much higher. In the end, Parteen basin, which is at the Ardnacrusha dam, was a much more secure option from an environmental point of view. Effectively, water would be taken at the back of the dam, so it would have come right through the lake and the lake and its ecosystem would have benefited from the water and there would be minimal risk of environmental impact. A huge number of environmental studies are still being done.

To answer Deputy Ó Broin's question, a strategic environmental assessment was conducted on this project specifically. We also conducted a strategic environmental assessment on the 25 year water services strategic plan, which specifically references this project.

All of our plans and programmes have strategic environmental assessments, SEAs and all of them, in so far as we can, are integrated. I would love if we could have an overall national water resources plan within the timeframe to cover everything but, frankly, that is in itself a massive piece of work. I am very cognisant of where there is adequate water. Places like Limerick, Galway and Cork are well supplied but in other parts of the country such as the north east, Deputy O'Dowd's territory, we need to upgrade the treatment plants. They are okay for the moment but the Boyne is a very limited river because it has been drained. Therefore, there is a need on this side of the country to have a strategic capacity in order that one can respond to changes over time in terms of development.

A question was asked about the loads on Dublin Bay. Our job is to provide the drinking water and to provide the wastewater treatment to the required standard. The urban wastewater treatment directive requires us to remove phosphorus and nitrogen from Ringsend and we have a project to do that. We are increasing the capacity of Ringsend from 1.65 million to 2.4 million population equivalent. The use of orthophosphate is a different thing, which is to deal with lead in drinking water. That has to be factored into how much phosphorus we take out so that we do not have an adverse impact on Dublin Bay.

In terms of the river basin planning process, we are very much in touch with that and we are very much part of the process of consultation and engagement in how those plans are being developed. What we do on the wastewater side and what we do on the abstraction side is very much part of that. We have been in discussions with the Department around the evolving implementation of abstraction regulation. At the moment, we have to work within the context of existing legislation, which is the 1964 Act, with the ESB and if there are any changes to that we will take them on board as we proceed to planning.

I will ask Ms Coleman to respond to the question about the environmental impact statement and how it is being scoped. In terms of the overall governance of the project, this project has been through four rounds of non-statutory public consultation, which has had very intensive engagement with communities, individuals, and all manner of interested groups but also directly with local authorities. We have been in the chambers in Tipperary and Offaly. We have been talking with the chief executives of those counties and directors of services. We have been very open. Deputy Cowen made a good point, namely, that when one is talking about broad options people who are impacted locally do not engage, so no matter how many rounds of consultation one has, until one comes down to a specific route and a specific pipe one does not know the people who are going to be directly affected. I can fully understand that we now need to go back to those people and show them what has been done in terms of the broader options. I will not go into the issues here as there is a massive amount of work involved. Deputy Cowen asked that we might look at the process we have been through and document it. It would be very valuable to remind people of all the steps and to be able to reference back to the various studies, among other things.

I accept Deputy Casey's point about the Vartry river. We probably underestimated what we were doing there. We were going in to put a treatment plant in an existing plant and we did not see ourselves impacting on the Vartry flow and we still do not intend to impact on it. The leakage from the old filters was travailing it and I think it is possible to compensate for that and still have a workable water supply. Perhaps we did drop the ball. If we did, we are talking to Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI, and to various others. There is of course a competition for how much water we can trade with the Vartry river because anything we give to the Vartry river we lose for Dublin, and more particularly for Wicklow now, because very little of that water reaches Dublin anymore. I accept the point that we have an obligation to engage and consult with State bodies and local authorities and to try to cover as much as we possibly can.

In response to Deputy Cowen, I will ask Mr. O'Sullivan to speak about the approach to individual landowners and how that process is being conducted. The environmental impact statement, EIS, process is really only happening this year. Ms Coleman can talk about the scoping of it, but that is a very big piece of work which has to look at every issue. Someone mentioned groundwater effects, such as how it affects local wells, and how it might affect aquifers. Groundwater is frequently referenced as a potential source of water but the experience in this part of the country in particular and, generally in Ireland, is very poor apart from small volume capacities. Any attempt to abstract from the Kildare aquifers would be met by immediate local opposition on environmental grounds. People might remember the Pollardstown Fen in respect of the motorway project where a massive amount had to be spent to try to protect against any drop in water level. Scientifically, one is just not going to get any appreciable amount. Certainly groundwater is very useful and probably needed for local needs anyway. I refer to agricultural needs in this part of the country and horticulture for example. There was thought to be a lot of water on the Fingal-Meath border and a lot of investigation went into it but very few sustainable yields were proven. One will get locally useful supplies but one will not solve the problem of the Dublin area in that regard.

The onus on us now is to engage openly and as much as we possibly can with communities and individuals who are directly affected by the proposal, which is now the preferred option on the table. We are only in the early stages of that and I give an assurance that we will make ourselves available and talk not just to individual farmers and communities but also representative bodies until we are satisfied that we have convinced people to the maximum extent possible. The prize is enormous as well and the risk of not developing the scheme is that we will run into shortages of water, whether that happens in 2024, 2025 or 2026, and we will get to the point where it will not be possible to cater for development in this region. In terms of the midland region, the Mullingar scheme is dependent on Lough Owel, which we share with Waterways Ireland. At the moment we are not able to meet the requirements of Waterways Ireland and Irish Water and we need to get additional supplies for the Mullingar scheme. I invite Mr. O'Sullivan to refer to the issue concerning farmers.