Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 5 November 2020

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

General Scheme of the Water Environment (Abstractions) Bill 2020: Discussion (Resumed)

Ms Mary Gurrie:

The hydropower and electro power dominate. We estimate that about 97% of all water abstracted goes into those schemes. We are excluding them for the moment to keep the numbers more realistic. We expect that those more than 25 cu. m will account for about 80% of all the volume of water extracted if the hydropower is excluded. We have the larger ones of those on the register representing about 95%. That is a lot of numbers. The register contains the vast majority of the volume of water that is being abstracted. The risk is really about volume. As we go down, the risk becomes lower in terms of the assessment. At lower levels of abstractions, it tends to be local. For example, a house with a well and a septic tank is almost a closed loop in terms of the risk assessment. The lower the threshold, the more that gets brought into the system. I hope that answers that.