Mr. Denis Holland:

I can assure Deputy Buckley that we applied for funding for Rocksprings. When the Department announced the multi-annual programme in 2019, it invited local authorities to make submissions, to make funding bids, as it were.

We made a detailed submission in September of that year. We identified 11 estates within our county that would be eligible for funding under the programme. We prioritised those and put Rocksprings at No. 4 on the list of 11. It was referred to in the chief executive's opening statement. If the committee refers to appendix 6 of the statement, it gives more details. We set out the proposal, which was broadly along the lines referred to in our proposal for the future development or action to resolve Rocksprings, and that was to connect the wastewater treatment plant from Rocksprings into the adjoining estate in Hillview.

The Department established an expert panel to review all the funding submissions that have come in from the different local authorities in the country. The expert panel published its report in September 2020, which the Department accepted. In respect of Rocksprings, it said the expert panel considered the bid to be premature for approval under the current funding cycle of the programme as issues with the responsibility in the long term for the enabling sewerage scheme, by which they meant the adjoining one at Hillview, needed to be resolved before funding approval could be recommended. As the chief executive has said, there is a national resolution required to resolve the DPI issue, not alone in County Tipperary but nationally. In the short term, we have proposed a local solution. If it not possible to expedite and progress on that, we will then have to seek a national solution and for Rocksprings to be included in that.