Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. He has outlined the deficiencies and without question, we have €6 billion in capital being invested through Uisce Éireann throughout the country. In Athlone, €114 million is planned. I will go straight to Limerick now. I brought forward the €50 million unserved villages fund. We asked each local authority to submit to us schemes where they own the land and have gone through Part 8 and we will tender and procure those works. When the works are done, we will hand it over to Uisce Éireann. I am awaiting a submission on that which I expect to have next week. I will make an announcement. I wanted to do that before Easter but we were not in a position to do so. That is another stream of delivery. I visited Shannonvale in County Cork and I was in Patrickswell with the Deputy. As he knows, we are seeing a fantastic new development happening there. It is only fair to acknowledge where things are happening. Croom and other places where there are pinch points are never going to be fixed over one or two years but we have a multi-annual capital plan with Uisce Éireann that it did not have previously. I will make announcements on what we call the unserved villages in the next week or so. I was expecting the submission last week but did not receive it. It is to the forefront of my mind, in particular Askeaton. That councillor has given sterling service over the years and championed this issue. There are 800 settlements throughout the country without any wastewater treatment to speak of at all. That shows the scale of the matter, and the Deputy will be aware of that. We are making progress and I expect to make announcements in the next week or so. I will keep the Deputy fully informed on that.