Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 18 June 2024
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government
Current Progress and Future Projections of Uisce Éireann Objectives: Uisce Éireann
Mr. Niall Gleeson:
I will go through these and I may call on my colleagues to give me a hand answering. On the water supply project, we have submitted the preliminary business case to the Department. We believe it has been well received and is moving through the public spending code phases at this stage. We are hoping to get some information on that in the next couple of weeks. Once that has been approved we will then go for planning, which we expect to be some time next year, probably around this time next year or maybe quarter 3. We will have a public consultation and all that kind of stuff in the meantime. In parallel with that we will be looking at the water abstraction legislation and dealing with the land owners along the route, whether through agreement or compulsory purchase order. They are the main challenges. I believe the biggest challenge is probably be the planning process for this project. It is a large process that goes through a number of counties. I expect that we will get significant judicial challenges even when we do get permission. We are hoping to get that done in three years. That may be optimistic but we are aiming to have the project delivering water by 2032. That could go to 2034 depending on these factors.
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