Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for the delay in joining the meeting. I will turn to the issue of funding to Irish Water and local authorities in respect of stand-alone sewage treatment facilities. I have a concern, which I have raised in the Dáil in the last week. The response I am getting is that there is a large number of stand-alone treatment facilities.

There is a huge number of these stand-alone treatment facilities, a large number of which were built in the period 1998 to 2008. Irish Water is not taking them in charge. If Irish Water will not take these treatment facilities in charge, the local authorities are not prepared to take the estates in charge. What assessment has the Department done on the number of these treatment facilities? I became aware of one in the past two weeks where raw sewage is pouring out of it. It is contaminating local waterways. The local authority technically had no obligation to deal with it. In fairness, Cork County Council did deal with the issue when it was raised with them, but nobody has responsibility for the maintenance of these treatment facilities. What is the Department doing on this? What work has the Department done in assessing the numbers of houses and housing estates that are directly affected?