Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 1 July 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Housing Delivery, Service and Supply: Discussion
2:00 am
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I advise members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. Today's meeting is on housing delivery, service and supply. A critical requirement for the mass delivery of housing and apartment schemes across the country is the infrastructure required to service future developments, including water, sewerage and electricity. Today I am pleased we have the opportunity to consider this and related matters with representatives from Uisce Éireann and ESB Networks. From Uisce Éireann I welcome Mr. Niall Gleeson, chief executive officer, Ms Margaret Attridge, head of water operations, and Ms Angela Ryan, asset strategy senior manager. From ESB Networks I welcome Mr. Nicholas Tarrant, managing director, and Mr. Alan Rossiter, head of strategy and network development.
Before we start, I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses as to references witnesses may make to another person in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present, or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts, is protected pursuant to both the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege. Witnesses are again reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks and it is imperative that they comply with any such direction.
The opening statements of Uisce Éireann and ESB Networks have been circulated to members. I propose that we publish the opening statements. Is that agreed? Agreed. I ask Mr. Tarrant and Mr. Gleeson to give a short summary of their opening statements.
Mr. Niall Gleeson:
I thank the committee for the invitation to speak. Uisce Éireann is Ireland's national publicly owned utility. We manage approximately 8,000 water and wastewater assets around the country, and approximately 90,000 km of pipework. We spend approximately €2.5 billion annually, so €1.4 billion this year will be on capital and approximately €1 billion on operational expenditure.
Under the strategic funding plan, we have requested €16.9 billion between now and 2029. This will comprise €10.2 billion in capital and the balance in operational funds. The key challenges for us include meeting demand from population and housing growth, with the infrastructure originally built for much smaller populations. We have made another request of the Government, based on the new housing targets, of another addition to take it from 33,000 in the Housing for All targets up to approximately 50,000 units per year. Supplying the capacity for this will require another €2 billion, which we are requesting through the NDP programme.
We work closely with developers, Government and other stakeholders to improve delivery processes and overcome barriers in planning, funding and consenting. We are engaging in cross-agency initiatives such as the accelerating infrastructure task force and the housing activation office. We have representatives on both of those bodies. Strategic projects like the greater Dublin drainage project and water supply for the eastern and midlands region face high risks without urgent planning and funding reforms. We need a collective mindset to focus on the common good of a lot of these projects. That is what we are focused on as far as getting some changes into the planning system and the consenting system. We want to see more alignment of the various agencies that are required to deliver infrastructure.
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
I will select a few points from our opening statement. We welcome the opportunity to speak to the committee today on ESB Networks' role in an issue of paramount importance to Members of the Oireachtas, their constituents, our customers and all of us in ESB Networks, that of housing delivery, services and supply. The role of ESB Networks is to design, build, own, operate and maintain the electricity distribution network and, as transmission system owner, to design, build, own and maintain the onshore transmission network on which we work in close co-operation with EirGrid, which is the transmission system operator.
There is approximately 180,000 km of network across Ireland. In 2024, our capital investment programme was approximately €1.1 billion across all of our work programmes, including network connections. This is part of an overall €5 billion programme under price review 5, which is coming to an end at the end of this year. We have been growing our workforce internally and externally, through our contract partners. Electricity demand has continued to rise sharply, driven by population growth, industrial development and accelerated electrification targets, set out in the climate action plan. From 2021 to May 2025, we connected more than 161,000 new homes, farms and businesses. The figure for January to May of this year exceeded the same period last year and the previous number of years in price review 5.
To meet the rapidly growing electricity demand in all sectors, including housing, the electricity network must undergo a transformative step-change in development. Under price review 6, ESB Networks, together with EirGrid, has proposed a €13.4 billion capital investment programme for the period 2026 to 2030. This is a critical programme of work to support our growing economy, increase housing connections and help Ireland achieve its climate action goals.
ESB Networks remains firmly committed to supporting the Government's housing and climate objectives, enabling the delivery of the NDP and accelerating Ireland's transition to a low-carbon future. We continue to facilitate electricity connections across all sectors, including housing, business and agriculture, in order to drive economic growth. Due to rapidly increasing electricity demand and global supply chain constraints, certain areas of our network are experiencing limited capacity. These challenges have been addressed in our price review 6 business plan, which includes the necessary infrastructure upgrades.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Thank you very much. Before we start, it would be remiss of me as Chair not to thank the staff of both organisations. Earlier this year, as we all know, Story Éowyn put the networks of both organisations to the pin of their collar. It is important to recognise that it was a challenging time but the staff I know worked around the clock, seven days a week, late at night and early in the morning. Some staff members were away from their families for a week or ten days. On behalf of the committee, I thank the staff of both organisations for their commitment to rectifying services for the citizens of the country as quickly as was humanly possible.
I will now invite members to ask questions. I remind any members who come in online to raise their hand and turn on their camera. First is Deputy Séamus McGrath.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses from Uisce Éireann and ESB Networks for being here today. I endorse what the Chair said about the work done by staff of both organisations during the recent storm and previous storms and extreme weather events. Their work is much appreciated. Please pass on our thanks to the staff. I will start with Uisce Éireann. The organisation's strategic funding plan for 2025-29 sets out an overall amount of €16.9 billion. This was based on the old Housing for All targets. Will Mr. Gleeson clarify exactly how much is needed for that period in relation to the targets for housing contained in the programme for Government? I know Housing for All is to be updated in the coming months. How much does Mr. Gleeson estimate is required in the new capital fund for the period 2025 to 2029?
Mr. Niall Gleeson:
For capital from 2025-29 the current ask is €10.2 billion. In order to go from 33,000 houses to 50,000 houses, we have asked for an additional €2 billion to provide the capacity to deliver them. A total of €1.7 billion of that is for our regular projects. We have ring-fenced €300 million for small towns and villages programmes. We will get more housing delivered under the €1.7 billion and that will be focused on urban areas, but we recognise that we need to facilitate rural development as well.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Is that ask entirely of the Government? In other words, there is no self-funding involved in the capital plan.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay, so the ask from Government is for an additional €2 billion per annum.
Mr. Niall Gleeson:
No, not per annum. Over the five years it is a total of €2 billion. As regards the additional ask, we are guided mainly by compliance projects. We will go into towns where there is an issue with the water infrastructure. The local plant might be polluting or the drinking water might contain THMs or something else. We will do a compliance project in those cases. We do not typically go in and do a growth-for-growth's sake project. We want to take the €2 billion and use it for dedicated growth projects, such as running out networks, running out infrastructure, upgrades and getting more out of the existing plants.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I apologise for rushing but the clock is against me. I want to turn to Dublin for a moment. We hear a lot of commentary about water supply and wastewater treatment in Dublin being on the brink. How bad is the situation in Dublin? How much more housing supply could Uisce Éireann cater for right now in Dublin?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I just want an approximate figure, to get a sense of where we are regarding the Dublin region.
Ms Angela Ryan:
In the Dublin region right now we have critical water and wastewater issues. Yesterday, the demand for water was about 643 million litres. Our plants can sustainably produce about 620 million litres. We had a deficit yesterday. We have ongoing interim projects to address the deficits. Similarly, on the wastewater side, we depend on the Ringsend wastewater treatment plant. We have upgraded this plant but, ultimately, we probably have two or three years of growth at the levels of demand increase left within that plant. We are trying to develop projects. In the NDP, 50% of the growth in housing is assigned to the eastern and midlands regions. Of the 300,000 houses in the programme for Government, 150,000 of them are in the eastern and midlands regions. Based on the facilities we have now, we can probably get up to 2028 or 2029 but, based on current capacity, that is when we will run into significant difficulties.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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If there is a particularly dry spell, it will present a lot of difficulties.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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So we are potentially never too far away from water restrictions, for example.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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As regards wastewater, there may be a period of particularly heavy rain, for example. I know the systems are not entirely separate. We are not too far away from overcapacity there in terms of potentially having to release into the sea or whatever.
Ms Angela Ryan:
One of our issues on the wastewater side is not just wastewater treatment capacity at Ringsend but also the networks that lead to Ringsend, that is, the trunk main infrastructure. The project we have developed, the greater Dublin drainage project, which is in planning permission now, consists of a wastewater treatment plant and an orbital sewer that will take the pressure off the large trunk mains in the city centre, so it is required for two reasons.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I have one more question to Uisce Éireann. I will probably have to come back to ESB Networks in the second round. As regards Uisce Éireann's engagement with various stakeholders, public representatives, local authorities, developers and so on, with respect, we hear a lot of criticism in terms of Uisce Éireann being a difficult organisation to engage with. Developers, for example, will say it takes months to get connection offers and so on. There are large amounts of bureaucracy and red tape. One of the big criticisms is that people are not dealing with the same person often but are continually dealing with different people. What would the representatives say to that criticism? Is there change afoot to try to improve Uisce Éireann's engagement with critical stakeholders?
Mr. Niall Gleeson:
As to how we deal with the various stakeholders, there are a lot of different systems. We have the LRSD, the local representative line, which is well used by representatives. Sometimes we may not be brilliant at getting back quickly enough but we do get 80% to 90% of those cases closed out fairly quickly. Sometimes the answer is not the answer people want, and that can cause frustration too. With the developers we have a connection and developer services system. Again, the ones that take longer tend to be the more complex applications. A lot of the time we do not want to say "No" so we want to investigate further to see if we can facilitate a development, but that sometimes takes time.
I do not know if there is anything to add there.
Ms Margaret Attridge:
On the queries from public representatives and our turnaround time for them, as of this month we are achieving 97% compliance on the closure rate within 60 days as regards the LRSD. An awful lot of the queries are closed a lot quicker than that. The more complex ones take longer. We are constantly driving improvements in our processes. This time last year, we had 52 aged cases from the previous year. By the end of June, we had two aged cases from last year. We are constantly driving improvement in our process. Hopefully we are getting that feedback from the public representatives as well.
We are also looking to improve our outage notification process. This will take some of the escalations to public representatives away from Members and bring them directly to us. We will be able through our new SMS messaging system to keep the public updated on outage notifications more directly.
On the connection applications, we acknowledge that we have had some issues in those processes as well but we are in the process of building a new engineering services team. It will be more agile and dynamic. We have dedicated resources that deal with the pass-through small developments for single small development houses and then a separate team that deals with more complex issues. We are looking to improve the turnaround times on those as well.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Thank you. I call Deputy Eoin Ó Broin.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Uisce Éireann and ESB Networks for their presentations. To start with Uisce Éireann and to follow on around the capital requirements to meet increased housing delivery, my understanding is that Uisce Éireann has been raising the need for that additional capital from as far back as January or February of last year in some forms. Can the representatives give us any indication of where they think the discussions with the Government and the relevant Departments are, on what is likely to be the situation for next year and the year after? Can they explain to the committee why a multi-annual funding commitment over the period to 2030 would be crucial? That is the first question.
Second, Uisce Éireann has repeatedly made a very reasonable case for critical infrastructure to be prioritised in the planning system, something ESB Networks and others have also rightly called for. Uisce Éireann has also made the case for parallel planning and consenting processes. Is there any indication that the Government is responding positively to those requests? Obviously, they would also be key in terms of accelerating the delivery of some of that key critical infrastructure.
Mr. Niall Gleeson:
I will come back but I will ask Ms Ryan to step in on these. The €2 billion is an additional ask. As part of the ongoing NDP review, everybody is in there with their asks. I think the outcome will depend on how the NDP is allocated across all sectors. There are large asks from every entity. Obviously, we think we are the most important and should get the most, but I think it will be down to how that spending is allocated.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Given the fact that a lot of the projects we are talking about are multi-annual in nature, if Uisce Éireann gets maybe the initial increases for, say, 2026 and 2027 but does not have visibility as to what the capital envelope is in 2028 to 2029 to 2030, how much could that hamper it in terms of increasing the capacity for growth in the water and wastewater system? How crucial is the multi-annual element of it, given Uisce Éireann's large projects?
Mr. Niall Gleeson:
To me, the biggest issue is the threat from the development that will happen in the UK, which is about to spend between €90 million and €100 million on similar projects to ours. If our supply chain does not see visibility for the next five years of committed multi-annual funding that enables it to invest in equipment, resources and so on, I can see companies drifting over to do more attractive projects in the UK. That is one of my biggest concerns, but there is also commitment. As the Deputy says, the projects are two- to three-year commitments, so there is a demand there for-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Realistically speaking, even if Uisce Éireann were to get a positive outcome from the national development plan review, given that it typically takes up to five years for new treatment capacity to be delivered, the actual increase, that growth potential, is still potentially five years off from when Uisce Éireann gets notification of the increased funding envelopes.
Mr. Niall Gleeson:
We can do a lot with the existing assets. We can probably sweat them to some degree. We can build out networks. I think we can deliver more capacity, even in the short term. What we have to do in the next five years is deliver short-term capacity but also invest in projects that will be delivered in the five-to-ten-year bracket. It is a combination of those. A lot of those projects would be in the €10.2 billion that has been mentioned. A lot of them are longer term projects.
Did Ms Ryan have anything to add on multi-annual funding, maybe?
Ms Angela Ryan:
With regard to the multi-annual funding, when the programme for Government was launched, Uisce Éireann reviewed those figures, including the 300,000 houses required by 2030. We looked at what was within our strategic funding plan that had been improved by the Minister and we did a gap analysis on what would be required to bring it to the next level. Uisce Éireann proactively set up an accelerated growth programme within our organisation. That has looked at all the core growth areas that are included within the national planning framework, regional assemblies and the local authority county development plans. We then overlaid that with information from our connection and developer services team so we have a good impression of where that growth will happen. We then did a gap analysis of what would be missing within those growth areas, that is, what we would need to invest in to bring it up to between 50,000 and 60,000 houses a year. Now we have a programme of work that has fallen out of that. We have been working on that in the background. We have developed that into a package of work. It has been submitted through the national development plan review, and when the outcome of that is announced we will go through the normal processes with our regulator, the CRU, on that.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Before Uisce Éireann deals with the final question about the planning priority and the consents, I will throw in a question for Mr. Tarrant to answer after that. The Commission for Regulation of Utilities has expressed some concern about connection policies where they are demand-led. In one of the reports recently it suggested that it should have similar powers to its counterpart in the Netherlands, where the Government says the delivery of homes is the priority and there are capacity constraints in certain areas. Then it is able to prioritise in accordance with those. If the witnesses have a view on that as well as the issue of planning and consents, I would be interested to hear it, but I ask the Uisce Éireann representatives to comment on the planning and consents stuff first.
Ms Angela Ryan:
As regards planning and consenting, it is not just about money; it is about being able to progress the projects we need to deliver. As Mr. Gleeson said, and the Deputy raised the point, it can take time, the lead-in time, for a large project like a wastewater treatment plant or a water treatment plant project. What we have is a continuous pipeline of interim projects to address-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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My question is more specific. Uisce Éireann has rightly called for parallel planning and consenting processes.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Is there any indication from engagement with the Government or officials that they are looking to facilitate that request?
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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However, it will ultimately require a change of legislation to allow for those parallel consents and planning applications.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I thank both organisations for coming in. I compliment them on the great work they did after Storm Éowyn. There was a lot of destruction out there, unfortunately.
Housing delivery is a big issue, and wastewater infrastructure is a major concern. In the absence of any commitment to develop sewerage schemes in small towns and villages in a timely manner, I ask Uisce Éireann whether it is open to the use of modular certified wastewater treatment systems as a temporary substitute to enable housing development until a permanent system is put in place. We are well aware that if we do not look at doing something, an awful lot of small villages and towns out there will not progress.
Mr. Niall Gleeson:
I will let Ms Ryan take this one. We are willing to engage and look at this but we have to remember that we have many legacy issues from the last time developers during the Celtic tiger era were allowed to put developer-provided infrastructure into the ground. We have probably set aside somewhere between €500 million and €1 billion to rectify those issues because we are taking those in charge now and they have many challenges. Ms Ryan will take this, but we just want to get it right this time.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I take on board Mr. Gleeson’s concerns. However, we are in crisis now and we have to review it.
Ms Angela Ryan:
As Mr. Gleeson was saying at the outset, we have requested an additional €300 million within this investment cycle to support rural housing, and the majority of that money will be spent on wastewater infrastructure projects within small towns and villages. One of the issues with small wastewater is the lead-in time for those projects. A very small wastewater project has to go through exactly the same consenting process as a medium or large wastewater treatment project. You still have to get licence applications, go through a formal planning consenting process and then get a wastewater discharge authorisation afterwards. That can add significant time to the process. As part of that rural housing initiative, Uisce Éireann is seeing if we can progress simplification in the lead-in times for such projects. They are very small and they represent a small and insignificant amount of environmental load. Therefore, they should potentially be treated in a slightly different way. We are interfacing with the EPA and other bodies such as the Department to try to work out how we could progress more standardisation within small wastewater projects and, therefore, accelerate the rate at which we can roll out new small wastewater treatment plants. Much of the focus should be placed on getting the processes working whereby the infrastructure provider can actually provide the service within rural communities.
In parallel to that, as the Deputy said, we have to be able to react. We are working with the Department of housing on trying to develop some standard specification designs and go through processes that look at how we might have individual mechanisms for developer-provided infrastructure as interim measures.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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What kind of a timeline is Ms Ryan talking about, to go through all those processes?
Ms Angela Ryan:
The first focus in that timeline needs to be understanding where the areas of growth are and where the needs are. We publish water and wastewater capacity registers on an annual basis. We understand the areas where there are difficulties with new connections to wastewater now but we need to twin that up with the applications that will arrive in the future in order to enable prioritisation into particular areas. We will then see if we can accelerate those areas in the normal way. In some cases, we will not be able to facilitate that. In that space, it is about ensuring we have the correct processes and checks in place to ensure the same thing does not happen again.
As Mr. Gleeson was saying, we may be taking in charge between 500 and 900 items of developer-provided infrastructure that were developed during the Celtic tiger period. All of them are at various stages of disrepair. It is a significant challenge for us as an organisation, not just in terms of bringing them up to standard but also operating those small developments when they come across. We have to have the appropriate procedures in place to enable that first.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Going back to developer-led modular certified wastewater treatment plants, does Uisce Éireann have specifications? Could that not be considered?
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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We need to be fast-tracking it.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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That is good. As Ms Ryan is well aware, rural villages and towns are being left; they are not being dealt with. Unfortunately, the population is dwindling away there. We are well aware of the issues in the environment and what has to be looked after now. If you do not have the proper systems, you will not be allowed to build in those villages and towns. Unfortunately, in my own County Clare, we have more than 50 settlements that do not have wastewater treatment systems. What are the chances of them going forward?
I thank the ESB for the fantastic work it did after the storm, and its workers who worked night and day. What measures has the ESB put in place going forward so we will never see the likes of this again? What we saw in rural Ireland was just unbelievable.
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
In response to Storm Éowyn, we have been dealing with the aftermath of the storm in terms of residual faults on the network. We have done extensive surveys of the network. Our network right across Ireland has about 160,000 km of overhead lines. The west and the north west got the biggest brunt of the storm in January and February. We have done those surveys and we are now doing follow-up work. The Government has requested that we put a plan in place, called the winter resilience plan, for this upcoming winter. Based on those surveys, we are doing targeted work on the network, including the progressing of some targeted forestry corridors. We are doing emergency timber cutting, and bringing in additional resources to do that. We are also doing work on the maintenance of our overhead line network. That work will progress right through the winter.
A number of other things are important to mention as well. We are doing a review of the storm including how the response went and what lessons we can learn for the future, which is important. We will also do an international review, as we are calling it, to look at international practice in other countries that experience severe weather, with a view to learning what they did with regard to the design and layout of the network in the aftermath. We plan to publish that probably early in the new year. There will then be discussions about how our investment plans should change in light of those recommendations. It is important to note that if we are hit with 185 km/h winds again – nobody can rule it out, albeit Storm Éowyn was the worst storm the ESB network faced since the 1940s – there would still be severe damage. That is a risk. We will take as many measures as we can to address the network in advance of this winter, but it is an overhead line network and it has exposure to that kind of extreme winds.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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I thank Uisce Éireann and the ESB for coming in. We know there is a lack of investment in and delivery of critical infrastructure for housing. This has been building up for years. What do the witnesses think needs to change to ensure that critical infrastructure - water and electricity - does not delay or limit housing development?
The second question is to both organisations, but Uisce Éireann in particular. It has been said that we could be facing a situation in two or three years’ time where further growth in Dublin essentially will not be possible. When do the witnesses believe that point will arrive where no more housing can be delivered in Dublin because of water and wastewater deficits? Is it three months’ time, six months’ time or a year’s time? At what point will the witnesses need to say that housing will not be able to be connected from then on? How close are we to the point where further housing will not be able to be developed in Dublin or around the country because they do not have the water and wastewater there? Do they think there is a policy and political recognition of the emergency we face in respect of this critical infrastructure, particularly water but also electricity and connections?
What impact does the lack of clarity on funding allocation mean in terms of that?
I also have a question for the ESB. Will competing demand from, say, data centres have an impact on housing delivery?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I suggest Irish Water goes first.
Mr. Niall Gleeson:
Again, Ms Ryan will give the details. We have various asks on infrastructure. For example, how to parallel the consenting processes and get prioritisation for national infrastructure projects. As far as growth is concerned in Dublin, we have some interim projects that we are working on that will allow us to stretch for a maximum of two or three years.
Ms Angela Ryan:
Obviously our goal, as an infrastructure provider, is to not say no to connections. It is worth noting that we have a very good rate of less than 0.3% refusals on connection applications. It is becoming increasingly difficult, particularly within the greater Dublin area, because we really are running out of road with our existing asset base but we are continuously trying to bring on new interim projects. For instance, with our wastewater networks we have got a number of network projects where we are trying to reduce groundwater infiltration into the networks. Again, that frees up a little bit of capacity in terms of housing.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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I want to get the sense of emergency out there as well and we have talked about this before. A period of two or three years has been mentioned. Does that mean six months, a year or 18 months' time when Irish Water has to turn around and say, actually, the water infrastructure is not there?
Ms Angela Ryan:
What we are saying is that in two or three years, if we are not making significant inroads into projects, that is when we will have difficulties. So we are trying to continuously keep going with interim projects.
In terms of emergency, it is reaching that point now because there are only so many small projects that one can bring into the system. Again, one looks at the efficacy of those projects on an individual basis. It is not really appropriate for a major infrastructure provider to be operating with zero per cent headroom. I would say that the greater Dublin area is probably the only urban city region in Europe that operates on a daily basis with zero per cent headroom so the situation is utterly critical right now. What we are saying is that as an organisation we are managing that on a daily basis. We have operational teams who react to peaks and instance on the networks and we have our asset management teams who continuously try to identify projects to free up little bits of capacity just to keep us going over the coming years. We are reaching a point with our critical and major infrastructure. We are really reliant on infrastructure that was developed in the 1970s and 1980s that was focused around a population of about 3.5 million but the population has grown to over 5.1 million. So we are squeezing all of that additional demand into services and assets that were never designed for that, thereby causing a lot of difficulty, particularly for our operational teams who must react and work 24-hour long durations during peak events.
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
On the Deputy's first question about what can be done to accelerate, it is really important that we accelerate the new projects that are coming through on the electricity network. There are 231 transmission projects that are identified in the price review 6 period that are brought forward by EirGrid and ultimately delivered by ESB Networks for the period 2026 to 2030. That programme of work is really important. There have been 29 projects identified as the priority projects and another tranche after that, at a transmission level, that are really urgent. A number of those are critical for Dublin, including what we call bulk supply points, which bring power from the transmission network down into the distribution network. Progressing those projects is really critical.
On the distribution level, we have identified 31 electricity substations. These 110 kV substations are large. They will take power from the transmission network, which is the equivalent of motorways when it comes to the electricity network, and then bring them down to the distribution network so that they can feed new houses, businesses, etc. As we are looking to accelerate those projects, any measures that can help with that are really important. An example of that would be accelerated consenting through the planning process. Another example is access to State land to be able to locate those substations and identify sites for them quickly in order that they can get on into the construction phase. Even though there is room for acceleration, the construction phase is usually a fairly fixed time so anything that can be done in advance of the construction period to get the projects done faster would be really important.
We get our funding through customer bills using the electricity regulated model and that is overseen by the CRU. Last November, we submitted a business plan for a price review. We expect a draft determination on that price review probably this week. That will be published by the CRU. Next there will be a consultation period. Around November or December the price review will be, hopefully, finalised, which will give us certainty and certainty to our supply chain. As for our contractors with which we have been growing in partnership over the last few years, and the people who supply us with key materials, it is important to give them market confidence for a five-year period and probably well beyond that because we are going to see sustained investment needed in the electricity network over the coming decades. Growing that critical resource for Ireland is important. So market confidence around the funding and the ability to invest is key.
The Deputy asked about data centres and maybe competing demand. There is a convergence around the electricity network that is driven by a number of factors. Obviously we know about housing. There are changes to the housing specification as well, including, for example, there are bigger housing connections now for electricity because of the electrification of heat and transport. We are seeing very strong economic growth and new industrial and commercial properties connections coming on to our network. There is also the wider electrification of heat and transport, as well as the likes of data centres. We are seeing a major increase in the number and capacity of connections being requested for the electricity network. A bit like our colleagues in Uisce Éireann, we are looking to connect as many people as possible. The policy, under our licence, is to connect people on a first come, first served basis. We are not allowed to discriminate between different types of customers irrespective of the sector.
Finally, there was a direction from the Commission for Regulation of Utilities in November 2021 that put certain criteria in place around the issuing of future offers to data centres.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We will move on as the time is up and next is Deputy Brian Stanley.
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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I recognise the technologically important work that the organisations are doing and nature of the workforce in both semi-State bodies.
To utilise my time well I will ask direct questions and ask our guests to give direct answers. What was the overall spend last year by Uisce Éireann? What is the rough percentage of total funding that was spent on replacing water supply pipes that leaked? I presume the organisation, as a corporate body, has a pie chart that shows its spend for last year. Perhaps Ms Attridge could answer that.
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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No. My questions are as follows. In 2024, how much was spent replacing pipes in the ground? What percentage was that of the funding? Was it 1% or 10%?
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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Does that include wastewater treatment systems?
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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So the overall budget was €1.3 billion last year.
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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So €1 billion was spent elsewhere. I know that is complex because there is a whole lot of other areas. What is the estimated overall cost of the Shannon-Dublin pipeline project now?
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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I remember standing on a site in Garryhinch, the proposed location for a reservoir, with representatives of Bord na Móna, when it was in the game, along with representatives of Uisce Éireann, when the project was estimated to cost €0.6 billion.
Some €4.6 billion is required now. Does Uisce Éireann have certainty in funding for that or is it dependent on what happens with the review of the national development plan?
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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It depends on the review of the national development plan. It is €4.6 billion.
On the cost of connections, a person is building a rural house where the pipe has to go across a field, not across the runway of an airport or motorway, just green grass in his field. It is not a long distance. You could throw a stone from the road, where the mains is, to the house. He got a bill, which he showed me, for more than €27,000. That is seriously high. I showed the letter to people who worked providing water connections in the council up to a few years ago and they said it would have come in at a fraction of that sum. Is there an option for people to lay the pipe themselves? Much of the conversation today has been about the difficulty in servicing new estates and I understand that. Builders are coming to me about that as well but this is an area where we can help or let people help themselves. If the householders or people building the house - it is a young couple with a family in this case, who are living in a temporary dwelling and trying to get a house built on land in his home place - were able to lay the pipe themselves and bring it to the road, will Irish Water facilitate that? It is one way we could speed up the delivery of housing, at least in rural areas.
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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That is fine but I am asking a different question. This couple is building a one-off house and the pipe needs to be laid a certain number of metres across a small field to meet the mains on the road. Irish Water will connect it. I understand that. Will Irish Water allow for that household to bring the pipe to the road across the green field?
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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Please do so and come back to me on it.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I will add on time.
The question the Deputy has asked - Uisce Éireann said it foresees it for developers and self-builds - is whether it sees a possibility for the same thing to be put in place for a rural dwelling. The same pipeline could be delivered at a far cheaper price if it were done by them through a local contractor than if it were done by Irish Water. Does Irish Water see that as a possibility?
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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I will come back to that.
I welcome ESB Networks. It has reached 4,000 workers now. My time was taken by the Cathaoirleach.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I will add it on.
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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I do not mind because he was pursuing the same issue.
On ESB Networks and its number of workers, the ESB had a great record of doing connections in the past. People would apply for a connection and within a week or two weeks, the crew cab or van would be up there connecting it. The ESB had a workforce of approximately 9,000 at one stage. It went down to almost 2,000 two years ago. The number became very low. One of the effects of that is that jobs, particularly for public bodies, increased. A local authority housing project I am familiar with was held up for a year and a half waiting for the connection because ESB Networks could not get the contractors to do the connection. In the intervening period, the builders said they wanted 60% or 70% more for doing the job. The Department told the council it would not give it and this went back and forth for another six or eight months. Does ESB Networks see the point I am outlining? Margaret Thatcher believed if everything was privatised it would all work out more efficient and cheaper. That is an example of how it went completely crazy.
I was talking to a young person recently who has just started an apprenticeship with ESB Networks. It is great to see those apprenticeships starting again. Is it the aim of ESB Networks to try to increase its direct workforce so that the local managers have control and can say they want a job done next week or the following week? In other words, it will not be dictated by contractors being off doing other work and coming whenever it suits them.
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
If we go back to 2021, just ESB Networks, as part of the ESB, was 3,350 people. We have seen significant retirements in the meantime, but we have got that number up over 4,000. As I said in the opening statement, we have hired well over 1,000 people. I would say it is probably at least 1,300. We have also extended our apprenticeship programme from approximately 60 per annum to approximately 150.
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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I read those figures. Will that continue? Is it the aim of the company?
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
Well, we are also building our resources externally because for the large projects we need specialist skills. We will have a balanced model of investing in our own people and hiring experienced electricians. We have hired approximately 430 of them in recent years as well as expanding our apprenticeship programme and we are about to expand our training centre, which is a state-of-the-art facility in Portlaoise, in the next year or 18 months.
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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It is clear that the over-dependence on private contractors did not work very well in some areas from what I have seen.
Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)
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On data centres and housing, it is projected that we will probably end up with between 200,000 and 250,000 new homes between now and 2030. In a few words, if the demand by data centres increases - at the moment they account for approximately 22% or 23% of our electricity demand - to more than 30% or up to 35%, will ESB Networks be able to supply the additional 250,000 houses that are required between now and 2030 as things stand? Mr. Tarrant has 30 seconds.
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
It is not possible to give a really quick answer. There are different requirements on the electricity network. It is not only data centres. Data centres were, in the main, contracted prior to the November 2021 decision, but there are other drivers driving demand on the electricity network, such as the electrification of heat and transport, which is putting huge demands on the sector. Going back to the point that we deal with connections on a first come, first served basis, we are continuing to make offers across all sectors, industrial, commercial and housing, but there are challenges. There is a challenging environment around the electricity network and that is why investment at pace is key.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I have to move on to Senator McCarthy. Deputy Séamus McGrath will step in for me for 15 minutes.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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I thank both teams for being here today. From being on the housing committee, it is clear to me that the housing crisis cannot be solved unless we have the infrastructure to support it. It is regularly brought up at this committee that there is a mismatch between the planning numbers and the infrastructure system. I work with a homelessness charity and I see every day how the blockages affect real people and that means families are without homes. Today, Uisce Éireann and ESB Networks are here to explain what the blockages are, where possible. It seems we cannot issue housing targets until we check there is infrastructure, but the infrastructure cannot be planned and put in place until we know where the housing is meant to be. That is what I have heard in the past few weeks.
How does ESB Networks plan? It has not been given figures for the demand for housing in various areas so how does it plan for that? What data does it rely on? Given that the national planning framework, NPF, did not release local housing targets, is ESB Networks effectively operating without local specific targets?
Also, I notice that 25% of national demand for the ESB is in north Dublin. Is that basically reacting to applications from developers? Is that what the ESB is basing its process of planning on? Does the ESB receive any formal advance information from the Department of housing or local authorities that allows it to forward-plan electricity infrastructure?
On a question to Irish Water, I looked at the €16.9 billion investment that is planned. That was based on the 33,000 target and while that target has recently been revised up to 50,000, the 50,000 figure has not been issued to local authorities in terms of the individual numbers. With regard to the €2 billion growth in investment required, how did Irish Water come up with that figure if the local figures have not been published? Given that the legal mandate of Irish Water is for environmental compliance, what assurance can this committee have that the €2 billion will not be spent on compliance issues and, therefore, not have any impact on our housing crisis?
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
On the first point regarding planning, we plan on a five-year cycle based on our price review process. We produce a business plan, take input from stakeholders as part of that plan and we publish it, as we did last November. We also published an approach document early in the summer last year to get inputs from various stakeholders. We then engage with the various Government Departments, including meeting the Department of housing, which we met last September in advance of submitting our plan. That was around the time that discussions were ongoing around the change to the targets that were upcoming.
If we look at where the electricity network is now, we published the distribution capacity pathways report following a detailed study of where we are and the plans for the future at the end of 2023. It looks at the distribution network and takes all the inputs in light of issues like the climate action plan and the growth of industrial and commercial expected loads, again linked to the transformation of economic growth and also housing. At the time we produced that report, we were operating on the basis of 30,000 houses per annum. When we put forward our plan for the price review coming up, we put in a large number of distribution substations that will add significant capacity to our network. Once we have those built, we will have significant additional capacity that supports housing and other needs. Between now and then, similar to the points made by Uisce Éireann, interim projects will be needed to address capacity during that period.
Specifically on the area of north Dublin, it has seen concentrated development across a range of sectors, and there are challenges in the electricity network there that we are working through. One of the differences between the ESB and Uisce Éireann is that we work closely with Eirgrid, which is the transmission system operator. We rely on Eirgrid providing transmission capacity for us that flows down into the distribution network.
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
No, we work very closely with Eirgrid. We are doing a piece of work with it at the moment on what transmission capacity is going to be available over the coming years to support the distribution network. We have worked with it, for example, on identifying the need for the new bulk supply points around Dublin that I mentioned earlier.
For any changes in, for example, zoning or areas in specific conurbations that are going to see growth, and the national planning framework identifies the main cities as key areas for growth for the future, utilities are an obvious issue. The earlier we are involved in being able to plan for the future, the better it is because these are multi-year projects. By the time they are designed, put forward for consent and come out of that process into construction, we are talking about a number of years. The earlier we are involved in that process, the more effective it will be in meeting the policy targets set out by the Government.
Mr. Niall Gleeson:
I will ask Ms Ryan to come in on the detail of how we arrived at the figure. As the Senator said, the figure has to be ring-fenced for growth projects, it cannot be diverted into compliance, so we will just have to manage that with the various agencies. Ms Ryan might explain how we came to the figure.
Ms Angela Ryan:
In relation to our proactive understanding of growth and where to invest in infrastructure, Uisce Éireann has a forward planning team. That team interfaces on a continual basis with the Office of the Planning Regulator, the regional assemblies and the individual local authorities during the development of their county development plans. We know from the local authorities what land has been zoned, what areas the local authorities are seeing movement within and what they have planned.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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But they have not been given their final numbers yet.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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What I have been hearing for the last number of weeks is that those figures are out of date. They are based on a census that is out of date and a lot has happened since. My point is not to put blame on Uisce Éireann. However, is Uisce Éireann operating on figures that are out of date and, therefore, when we catch up, we will be behind?
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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The local authorities do not have sight of those figures. That is the point.
Ms Angela Ryan:
The local authorities have sight of the initial figures from the national planning framework. In addition, within the county development plans, there is always an additional amount of land that is zoned, so it is flexible and we can see that.
Within Uisce Éireann, we have a pre-connection inquiries service involving our connection developer services teams. We have a process whereby developers can come in to us and ask us for information about the requirements or the assets that are available in relation to specific areas. We offer that as a service.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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The ESB and Irish Water do a fantastic job but it looks like they are flying blind without those final numbers.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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I thank both bodies for their contributions today. I will start with Uisce Éireann. On a positive note, living in Wicklow, I live beside Vartry and I have seen the huge investment in the water mains distribution and the plant itself. More importantly for Wicklow, I was with Mr. Gleeson when we opened the new wastewater treatment plant in Arklow. As has been said, that was based on a compliance issue. However, while sorting the compliance issue, Uisce Éireann also provided additional growth capacity for Arklow, which was great to see. That is on the positive side.
Mr. Gleeson also mentioned that day his frustration with the planning process for the greater Dublin drainage scheme, and I can associate with that. I have a genuine concern that the common good of people is being overtaken by individuals with regard to the critical infrastructure that is required by both ESB Networks and Uisce Éireann. That is just an observation. Part of that is the time-bound planning process that we are trying to install.
With regard to Uisce Éireann, there are two processes, one being the pre-application process and the other the connection process. Can anything be done from a time point of view to accelerate the 16 weeks in both cases? That is a total of 32 weeks, and there are a number of failures within that as well. That is the first question.
Ms Margaret Attridge:
We acknowledge that the timeline in some cases has been too long. As I said earlier, we are expanding our engineering services teams. Many of the queries are quite simple and the answer will be “Yes”, so we need to get those through the process as quickly as possible. We have a dedicated engineering services team that will deal with those. The more complex issues will take longer.
We have started to deliver some improvements. We currently have 87% of our pre-connection inquiries closed within the 16-week period. A lot of them are much shorter than 16 weeks and there is now a much faster turnaround time for pre-connection queries. With regard to the follow-on applications, 71% of those are closed within the 16-week period.
As of now, our refusal rate is at just 1.2% for the pre-connections and 0.4% for the connections. In most cases, the answer is “Yes-Yes”. It is just that when the applications are larger and more complex, there is not always a quick answer. We are looking for a solution to support the developments. We just have to consider all the options and that is what can take time with some of them.
We are resourcing up to turn around those applications more quickly.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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Is ESB Networks consulted during the county development plan process on where residential developments are being located and whether or not the infrastructure is there, similar to what Irish Water goes through?
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
I cannot comment for certain about whether we are consulted. I believe we are. For example, we had representatives at the Northern and Western Regional Assembly recently, presenting our plans and engaging with the assembly around this process. We are aware of the updating of the plans, as outlined, by Uisce Éireann. We expect, given the critical nature of the housing need, that we will work very closely with the local authorities. We are in ongoing contact with them around everything from the infrastructure projects we are delivering in the short term to meet the needs of housing and other needs to future plans. As local plans are developed and change formally, we expect to be very close to that process.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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In a county development plan, it is clearly indicated if water and wastewater infrastructure is available but that is not the case for power. Can that be worked on? On Irish Water and developer-led investment, we have to learn from our history. Garden Village in Newtownmountkennedy is an absolute disaster. It was left behind. We cannot go back to that. Equally, we have seen the reverse in Arklow, where the primary health care system was on a private system and a full, brand-new council estate was established four years ago in a developer-led system. There are practical, realistic solutions that can be developer-led. I know it is being considered but how aggressively could it be considered? We have to learn from the past but we have to move forward as well. Irish Water cannot reach everything. It will not be possible if we are to get the figures we need that Uisce Éireann can do it all.
Mr. Niall Gleeson:
I will go back to Ms Ryan but we want to get the standardised package. If we do not fix the process, developers will have the same problems we have in getting those plants installed. We want to fix the process and make it simpler with simpler-packaged plants. Ms Ryan will explain regarding environmental regulations.
Ms Angela Ryan:
There are two aspects. There is infrastructure put in place and there are the authorisations for that infrastructure around the environment. Regarding small wastewater, Uisce Éireann would like more standardisation in those processes such as general binding rules around wastewater discharge, authorisations and the ability to progress small infrastructure at a faster rate through the planning system. That being said, as the Senator said, there will be a pinch point in some areas. We realistically anticipate that which is why we are working proactively with the Department.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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Data centres were mentioned; there was a successful launch of data centre in Arklow recently. I think it was the first time a licence was issued in almost four years. Part of that licence agreement was the data centre could not take energy from the grid unless the grid had excess capacity. It was also obliged to provide the grid with capacity under time constraint. Can the witnesses confirm that?
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
I am not familiar with the specific details of that particular connection. It is a transmission connection so we do not deal directly with it. It would be consistent with the requirements set out in the 2021 direction to system operators which included being able to provide flexibility services to the transmission or distribution system and having on-site generation and flexibility. Data centres have a critical role in the overall enterprise strategy on digitalisation as well as decarbonisation. Otherwise, I cannot comment on that particular case.
Pat Casey (Fianna Fail)
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On capital investment, the witness said €10 billion was needed for 33,000 houses a year but only an additional €2 billion to build an extra 85,000 over five years. It would be great value for money - I am not complaining.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for being here today. To Uisce Éireann, there are ten houses in Carrignavar village in County Cork built and ready for use. Cork County Council wants to buy them but they have not been connected to wastewater for the past ten years. The same village has a proposed new special school going into the old primary school. It is supposed to happen this year if not next year. The houses are built. I have a photograph of me standing outside them. The houses have been built for ten years and they cannot be connected. Do the witnesses have an answer about Carrignavar? How many houses have been built across the State that cannot be used because they cannot get a connection to water and wastewater?
Ms Angela Ryan:
In general, Uisce Éireann prepares a water and wastewater capacity register annually. Within that capacity register, there is a RAG status - red, amber, green. Green means capacity is available, amber means there are some limitations and we may need to progress a project and red is where there is no capacity. There are approximately 184 red wastewater agglomerations in our capacity register right now, 33 of which are in Cork county. The issue with reds in the capacity register is usually an environmental issue we cannot address until we progress a new water treatment system. We can follow up on the specific query. With reds on the capacity register, it is usually not an infrastructure issue, it is usually an environmental issue that prevents us from-----
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Ms Ryan. I apologise for rushing the witnesses but I have limited time. I am going to speak in the Dáil straight after this. There is an issue in relation to the priority given in the small towns and villages programme. Carrignavar is on the outskirts of Cork; it is an area people want to live in. They can be in the countryside but work in the city. There is no capacity. It is not just Carrignavar, there are other areas.
I have a list of the manganese levels which Uisce Éireann tested in Cork. There is a crisis in the north side of Cork. According to the European Union and the World Health Organization, there should be no more than 50 µg/l of manganese in the water. On this list, there is 56 µg/l, 80 µg/l, 128 µg/l, 96 µg/l, 124 µg/l and 121 µg/l. The water is poison. This is not me saying this; this is the World Health Organization, the European Union and Uisce Éireann's own testing tells us the water in the taps in some areas is poison. For infants and young children, manganese in the water has a huge effect on their immune systems. Areas were tested on 8 and 15 January where manganese levels were 128 µg/l. People were not notified until 21 February that the water they drank in January was poison.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I have a letter from Uisce Éireann - this is all data I got from Uisce Éireann. Why is a do not drink notice not put on the water when it is at these levels?
Ms Angela Ryan:
In our process, water has to comply with drinking water regulations which are set based on the European directives on drinking water. They set out 48 parameters that have to be tested in drinking water on an ongoing basis to ensure compliance with the directive. We take a risk-based approach. We have a sampling regime undertaken annually. Those water samples are taken from taps in customers' houses, usually the kitchen tap.
What we can find is we can get intermittent exceedances of some of the parametric values from the drinking water regulations.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I am sorry for interrupting, but this has been going on for two and a half years on the north side of Cork city. We have got the data from Uisce Éireann through either freedom of information or questions to the Minister. We have a situation where people are drinking water in Cork they should not be drinking. Why is there not a "Do not consume" notice being put out?
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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These are figures from Uisce Éireann that say the manganese levels-----
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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-----are at 120-odd.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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On 28 August, 30 August, 2 September, 23 September, 30 September, 4 October, 11 October, 14 October, 18 November and 28 December it went over. This is every week.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Yes. The Deputy should give the officials a chance to reply.
Ms Margaret Attridge:
Any time there is an exceedance in the network we engage with the HSE and it will offer health advice. As Deputy Gould knows, this year we installed a manganese treatment unit at the treatment plant and also an additional conditioning treatment unit to adjust the alkalinity, which manages the corrosivity of the water going into the network, so thankfully the people of Cork city are seeing an improvement in the water quality in the city. The number of complaints is reduced to two to three a day as opposed to last year when we were seeing ten to 15 per day. We are continuing to sample. We have expanded our sampling programme on the network to ensure the water, for the most part, is compliant. We take public health very seriously. We are sampling at 48 locations across the city. Any time there is a manganese exceedance, either by our proactive sampling or when we do follow-up sampling following a customer contact about discolouration, we sample the water. If there is a failure we go out and flush the network immediately at that location and test the water following flushing to make sure it is compliant and provide the certificate to the customer to validate that the water is compliant.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I will conclude because I have to go to the Chamber to speak, but as long as those are exceeding the European Union's figures, Uisce Éireann's figures, that means that water in my opinion and in the legal opinion is not fit for consumption and a "Do not consume" notice should be put on it. We are talking about over 100,000 people. We are talking about thousands of children being put at risk. If the water exceeds manganese levels a "Do not consume" notice should be put on it. That is my position. I stated it in the last Dáil and I am stating it now in this committee. This would never happen in Dublin. There would be a scandal. Imagine if it was announced that half of Dublin had manganese levels that according to the World Health Organization can harm young children. People are making up bottles at night for the babies. There is no way that should be allowed.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay Deputy, I just want to give a quick reply opportunity.
Mr. Niall Gleeson:
As we have just said, we have installed a manganese reduction system in the plant so those issues are gone away and as we said they were intermittent exceedances. That is our position. We consult the HSE when there are exceedances.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay, we have to move on.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I will be back to you.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Butterly is next.
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Hello to the officials. I am from the Louth constituency. I will start with the ESB. The port access northern cross route, PANCR, in Drogheda is intended to have 7,000 homes. Phase 2 is about to start any time now. My understanding is in or around April of this year a moratorium was placed on new connections. I cannot overstate the importance the PANCR project will have for a town like Drogheda. Has this moratorium been lifted? The substations at Drybridge and Termonfeckin Road have been the subject of contention. Has that been reviewed and resolved? The officials will tell me better, but I believe we need to raise the caps on the transformers. Has the ESB looked at auditing any dormant and unused connections to free up additional space? Will there be a third - pardon me because I am not technical - 63 MVA transformer? As I said, the importance to the town of these 7,000 homes is incredible. We have got IDA lands, we hope with businesses about to move in, that will need connections. It is vital we are up to speed on this. I would like to hear the progress that has been made since this moratorium was apparently called.
I put the same matter to Irish Water. I believe we have capacity for only about 800 homes in the Drogheda PANCR area. Pardon the pun, but if we stall the digger on these homes being built and all the additional services that go with them I cannot imagine what the detrimental effect could be on the town in relation to future jobs, future homes and the future of the town itself.
Also on water, I would like to hear any updates regarding Dundalk because we have huge issues with both clean water and wastewater in Drogheda, Dundalk and also in Ardee. The councillors in Dundalk have been very active about blocking some homes. I cannot go any further because I believe it is part of legal proceedings now. A key issue that really worries the people of Blackrock at the moment is the water quality. The suspicion is it is coming as a result of the overflow of the wastewater treatment. I would like to hear the Uisce Éireann officials' opinion on that because it is hugely concerning to people in Blackrock and Dundalk.
I hope I got the technical aspects right. I probably did not but the officials will know what I was trying to say.
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
I think I do. I ask Mr. Rossiter to comment in a second, but I will make a few brief introductory remarks about the overall situation first. There has been very significant growth in the whole Drogheda area in recent years and it is probably typical of areas that have seen sustained growth in terms of electricity demand. I mentioned already about things like housing. Just to put it in context, because of electrification and the use of heat pumps in nearly all new homes, they are going in with more than twice the electrical capacity they would have done in Celtic tiger years. We are therefore using up capacity on the network both at low voltage, but also at the high voltage substations like Drybridge, in a way that is accelerated. There are also wider targets for electrification of transport like EV charging and other areas, so there is very significant demand. Back around Christmastime we lowered the threshold above which any connection offers above what is called 100 kVA have to go to our central planning team to review to see what work is going to be required to enable a connection. Obviously something like 7,000 new homes is a very significant electrical load. What that could mean for us is investment and sometimes this investment takes a number of years to deliver because substations like Drybridge are multiyear projects to deliver if you are, say, replacing them.
On the specific point about the transformers, which I ask Mr. Rossiter to comment on, we have transformers that have a certain capacity inherent in them because of their design and when they were installed back when the substation was built and there is the potential to upgrade those transformers.
Mr. Alan Rossiter:
The main substation in the Drogheda area is Drybridge. There was a very significant capital investment programme in it back in 2014. We changed from what were 31 MVA transformers up to 63 MVA ones. Over that time period that capacity is approaching full utilisation. We have a number of programmes under way to increase the capacity both in the long term and the short or medium term.
Long term, we have a new substation as part of our price review 6, PR6, submission on the Donore Road. That will add significant additional capacity to the whole Drogheda area. In the short term, we have carried out the reviews in the Drybridge and connected stations. Those reviews have been carried out. We are engaging both locally and with the transmission system operator to see what the feasibility is of either a third transformer or a higher rate of transformer capacity in that area. In the interim, there is no moratorium on houses. It is just the studies. Housing is having to come into our planning theme for detailed studies on how exactly we fit them into that network. I am aware of the ambition around the 7,000 units. In the Drogheda area last year, there were 624 units of apartment, housing scheme and one-off connections. For scale, that is a significant-----
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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The Chair is going to interrupt me any moment. On that, Mr. Rossiter said the review is complete. Do we have a timeline for when the solutions will be put in place?
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Is the timeline six months, eight months or 12 months?
Mr. Alan Rossiter:
It is in the region of 12 to 24 months. In the interim, there is no moratorium on housing and we are looking at what is possible. For example, can we transfer load to adjacent large substations such as Navan to keep that pipeline of housing going? I am aware of some connections in and around Ballymakenny Village and we are actively looking at them.
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Is Mr. Rossiter saying that we will have no issues connecting the houses in and around the Ballymakenny area, that this can occur and that we will have facilities and connectivity for any new businesses coming into Drogheda?
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
We cannot give a blanket answer on something like this. There are complex issues with such a big step change in development. We are looking at solutions. We are happy to talk about it separately in more detail. It is not easy to be able to say that it will be exactly six, eight or nine months. Mr. Rossiter has given a good sense of the timeline for just the transformers, never mind the wider step change in development for something like 7,000 units.
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Tarrant. I will take him up on his offer of a meeting. I have more questions to ask.
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Is there time for an answer about Uisce Éireann?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Not now, unfortunately. We are way over time.
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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I thank both groups for being with us this afternoon. Coming from the west, I acknowledge all the work the witnesses' organisations did during Storm Éowyn. However, people living in Dunmore in County Galway, which is just 40 miles north of where I live, had to wait for 41 days for their connection back to the ESB. They felt very forgotten about. What plans are in place in the event of a repeat of Storm Éowyn? Will a generator be left in Dunmore? People on the Aran Islands were better served than people on the mainland when it came to reconnection. All that the team in Dunmore is asking is to have a generator to reconnect to the system. Are plans afoot for that in the ESB?
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
I am not aware of whether there are specific plans for generators in Dunmore. It is obviously an area that was hit significantly by the storm. In the west of Ireland in general, there was devastating damage as a result of the storm. We put in every resource possible, including international resources and our contract partners, to restore people's power as quickly as possible. The overall plan around investment and trying to protect our overhead line network is part of what we are looking at for the future, to see how we invest in the network for the long term, because it is dominated by an overhead line network. We do not have a specific plan for a generator in Dunmore. It is not something that we do. In general, the investment we make is in the electricity network itself.
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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In that vein, regarding the upgrade of the network, one has to look at another aspect of rural Ireland, which is trees. Will a mechanism or plan be put in place to assist in that regard? From talking to the local authorities, they do not have the money to cut trees. At the same time, if we have trees too close to the overhead lines, it is a huge issue. Has a proposal gone to Government or the agency to get funding for the ESB so that we can get the trees cut?
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
As part of the winter resilience plan the Government requested we put in place, we are bringing in additional emergency resources for timber-cutting in the circuits that have been most affected by Storm Éowyn. We are also bringing in resources to do targeted forestry corridor work. As the Senator knows, forestry was a significant issue, particularly in counties Galway, Roscommon, Leitrim, Sligo and other counties. We are also talking to Government about its plans to potentially bring in legislation relating to this for the future.
To talk about our ongoing programme relating to timber and trees that are in close proximity to overhead lines, we have been growing our external resource in this area. At this stage, we have about 400 people working full-time nationally on timber-cutting. We are looking to increase that number in the next price review period, hopefully getting up to around 500 people into next year. The funding associated with that was part of our submission before Storm Éowyn, when we published our business plan back in November. Ultimately, the decision around that rests with our regulator, the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU. We are expecting draft information on that this week and, ultimately, a final determination which will decide our funding for the next five years. We are very conscious of all our customers, particularly those in the west, who suffered severely, not only in this recent storm but in previous ones too. We are hoping to get investment to support reliability for the network in that area.
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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My next question relates to the grid. In the past three months, how close have we gone to the blackout stage or having to use our gas plants? How many times in the last three months has the ESB had to turn on the switchgear generators and use our reserves because we were in the black?
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
The transmission system operator, Eirgrid, is responsible for managing the balance between supply and demand on an ongoing basis. It is not a role for us in ESB Networks. Regarding generators, the generator providers and the likes of Eirgrid would probably be able to comment best on that? We in ESB Networks manage and operate the electricity distribution system. We build the transmission system too but we are not involved in day-to-day management of the supply-demand balance.
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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Maybe I should come at it from another way. Did ESB Networks get many phone calls in the last three months indicating that the supply was at a tight line?
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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I come from Portumna where we have the Coolpowra transmission site. We also have one in Cashla in Athenry. We have such a dearth of energy, which I totally understand. I am trying, for our community, to understand how many times switchgear energy has been used. What is the need? When you are building a 440 kVA generator in the likes of Portumna and it has to transmit enough power for 740,000 houses, I have to know that there is a need for that for a community to be able to support it.
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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How many times has ESB Networks hit red in the last three months? How many times has ESB Networks got the phone call?
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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When was the last time the ESB had an official alert? Has there been one in the past six months?
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
-----in light of what was happening. Otherwise, I cannot remember one in the past number of months. We can certainly clarify that.
On the broader point on infrastructure and why infrastructure is built, particularly with the growth of onshore wind solar projects, given the needs on the demand side around new businesses, homes, farms, etc., there is a need for investment on both of those tracks. To look at what is being invested in, particularly in the west in the early stages of wind development onshore in Ireland, significant infrastructure has been built to support our journey towards net-zero in Ireland. We are harnessing that renewable resource in many places from County Donegal down to County Kerry. A big part of the infrastructure that has been built has been around that, as well as supporting industrial development and transmission that will support the distribution network for housing and businesses.
Maria McCormack (Sinn Fein)
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I will pick one issue and explain and give an overview of it. I mention Hollybrook, a developer in County Laois. I feel like piggy in the middle in this situation. Eighty houses have been sold to families, some of whom have reached out to me. They were originally supposed to move into the houses in February 2025. The date was pushed back to April or May 2025 and then again to October 2025. The developer is saying it is down to delays with the ESB. I contacted the ESB, and it came back after one month via email. It stated that ESB Networks strongly encourages developers to engage with ESB well in advance and that it was liaising with the developer. I went back to the developer, and it said it applied for the original quotation on 29 March 2024. It only got an acknowledgement that the application was received on 17 July 2024. There is back and forward here. Eventually, the developer got communication from ESB and had a meeting with it on 2 April 2025. I forwarded this communication to the contact in the ESB. It came back and said there was extra work it needed to do in Portlaoise, and everything would be up and running by 20 June. That did not happen. Families from Dublin who have bought the houses cannot get a school bus for their children from Dublin to Portlaoise. They have children enrolled in schools. Another housing estate built after the development in Portlaoise has got its connections. The estates are on different roads. Why is one taking priority? How do I navigate this situation when the ESB is telling me that the developer is not giving it enough time and the developer is saying it is contacting the ESB? In the middle of it all, I have 80 families who cannot get into their houses. The houses are going to go mouldy if they are left for a year without their ESB connection.
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
It is a difficult for any family to be involved in a situation where they have purchased a property and are waiting for an electricity connection. What is crucial with any developer of housing, particularly in areas of the network where there are constraints or limitations on capacity because of the level of growth that has happened, is early engagement and to give us time to work through solutions to ensure we have the capacity available if we can find ways of doing that. In a case like this, what appears to have happened is that the housing development was happening in parallel with the connection application going into us and the application was being processed and assessed while the houses were being built. I cannot comment on the houses in turn being sold on to families and customers. We are doing positive work in Portlaoise. I ask Mr. Rossiter to address what we have done in Portlaoise to upgrade capacity there. That is ongoing work.
Maria McCormack (Sinn Fein)
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Before Mr. Rossiter comes in, can he provide me with some kind of date for these 80 families? We can imagine how stressful it is for them.
Mr. David Rossiter:
I do not have the specifics on that particular application or the connection. I am happy to take these points away and come back directly to the Senator. In the wider Portlaoise area, there has been significant growth in recent years. That has led to the main substation in Portlaoise nearing limited capacity or approaching capacity. Since January, we have started a major capital investment programme of more than €11 million in that substation to upgrade the transformers. That work is well under way. The first of those transformers will be on stream at the end of August. The second will be on stream before the end of the year. This will add significant capacity, not only in the Portlaoise area but also connected villages, such as Abbeyleix. Regarding the specifics, there could be construction complexities, road opening, etc., that I am not familiar with. I will come back to the Senator about that specific Hollybrook development.
PJ Murphy (Fine Gael)
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I will start by addressing the witnesses from the ESB. I am from the southern part of the Galway East constituency. For six years, I represented the Gort–Kinvara local electoral area on Galway County Council. Thankfully, we do not have ESB capacity issues in our area. Connections are generally forthcoming. That is very much appreciated. One issue that we have with the ESB in our area is the power generation site at Derrybrien. There are currently a number of wind turbines standing on that site which are not generating electricity or contributing in any way to the supply of electricity in the grid. Local people are anxious to know about the future for this site. There are a number of turbines there serving no purpose. What are the short-, medium- and long-term plans for this ESB generation site? Is it the ESB's intention to generate electricity on that site again or to return that mountain to its pristine original condition? How does the ESB see the future for that site?
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
Unfortunately, it is a different part of the business that I cannot comment on. ESB Networks is a separate regulated part of the ESB. Our function relates to the ESB electricity network of both transmission and distribution. As a generation site, that comes under another part of ESB. Our generation colleagues would be best placed to answer those questions. I was involved in the generation business prior to 2014. I am familiar with that site and some of the history around it. Unfortunately, I cannot comment on it today. I am happy to follow up and put the Senator in touch with someone in the generation business to deal with those questions and the plans for the site.
PJ Murphy (Fine Gael)
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I would very much appreciate that. Perhaps the committee could engage with the generation business because this site has been left in limbo for many years. It is an imposing site overlooking south Galway and the people of south Galway are anxious to know the long-term plans for it.
Moving to Uisce Éireann, as I mentioned, I formerly represented the Gort-Kinvara local electoral area on Galway County Council for six years. In that local electoral area, there are 14 settlements, of which only two, namely, Gort and Kinvara, are serviced with municipal wastewater treatment facilities. Gort has reached capacity. As such, an electoral area that is geographically almost as large as County Louth and is in a rent pressure zone has one settlement with capacity for development in an housing emergency. That leaves Kilcolgan, Ardrahan, Laban, Ballinderreen, Craughwell and Clarinbridge, all long-standing villages, completely closed to development. More than two years ago, Craughwell and Clarinbridge were selected as part of the pilot scheme to be serviced with municipal wastewater treatment facilities. The application was made at my request, as the local representative at the time. They were selected. To date, I have not heard one word of progress on either of those sites. Local people and the local authority are none the wiser as to any progress that has been made with site selections, plans, etc., in those two settlements since that money was allocated. We are talking about a large amount of money that was allocated a number of years ago. What are the plans for servicing Craughwell and Clarinbridge? How soon are those plans going to reach fruition?
My next questions are on the other unserviced settlements, namely, Kilcolgan, Ardrahan, Laban and Ballinderreen. Outside of my electoral area, large villages like Abbeyknockmoy and Corofin are also unserviced. Bear in mind we have a housing crisis and these are in a rent pressure zone with massive potential for housing development. These settlements have been closed to development since 2009. No planning application has been granted due to the lack of wastewater infrastructure. What are the plans for those? How soon will Galway County Council be in a position to grant planning permission for housing developments in these settlements.
Ms Angela Ryan:
I will take the question in general. Uisce Éireann's mandate as the single public utility is to manage and operate the public wastewater network in Ireland. Unserviced towns and villages are outside of our remit. However, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has a rural water scheme. That may be the scheme to which the Senator is referring. Towns and villages can apply for water and wastewater services and, when they are provided, there is a mechanism for Uisce Éireann to take those services in charge. That is the formal process we go through.
The towns and villages the Senator mentioned as being unserviced at present would have to pass through that formal mechanism, namely, the rural water scheme set up by the Department. On the two sites mentioned as being on the pilot scheme, I can go back to my colleagues in the company and get updates on those, such as Clarinbridge.
PJ Murphy (Fine Gael)
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Given that answer and the progress since the establishment of Uisce Éireann or Irish Water, I can only assume that if the unserviced villages I mentioned are to apply through the process suggested and wait to be selected and serviced, the young people waiting on houses will be talking to their grandchildren about the possibility of living in these villages. The housing crisis is now. We need an alternative means of developing wastewater services.
My colleagues mentioned developer-led processes. That has to be the solution for small, unserviced settlements. I liked what I heard the witnesses say earlier about Uisce Éireann developing the specification for these. This system has to be expedited. We have to get to a position very soon whereby Galway County Council and other local authorities can grant planning permission to developers for housing developments in unserviced settlements with onsite package plants specified by Uisce Éireann and then taken in charge. We need to get there as soon as possible. I am anxious to know the timeline for that.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I have to move on. We have gone well over the time on that. We will get a chance to come back for that answer. The next slot is for Fianna Fáil. I call Deputy McGrath.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Going back to the Dublin position, Uisce Éireann witnesses mentioned interim measures and so on. That is all very welcome. What is the single biggest project for water in the Dublin region that needs to happen under the new capital plan? What is the estimated cost of that? What is the single biggest project for water and for wastewater? They are separate projects, obviously. What would be the single biggest project to help with housing supply and headroom? What would be the overall cost of each of those projects?
Ms Angela Ryan:
The two biggest projects are, first, greater Dublin drainage, which is the plan for the orbital sewer and the wastewaster treatment plant at Clonshaugh. The estimated cost of the project is €1.2 billion. On the water side, it is the water supply project for the eastern and midlands region. That is the proposal to build a new water treatment plant in Birdhill, County Tipperary, and to have a pipeline across the midlands and east which will service not just the greater Dublin area but also communities in towns and villages along the way.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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What is the cost of that?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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If Uisce Éireann had funding certainty right now, how far away are we from delivery of either of those? I know that is an open question.
Ms Angela Ryan:
It would rely on funding certainty and some barriers being removed. We are awaiting planning permission for greater Dublin drainage and are about to submit planning permission at the end of the year for the water supply project. If we were to remove certain barriers to delivery, we could potentially accelerate those projects to around 2032. There are consenting processes that those projects are going through. The consenting and approval processes can be subject to appeal, objection and judicial review. That is what takes time.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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The headroom mentioned earlier was two to three years for the Dublin area. What bridges the gap? Is it all interim measures?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Are there enough of them there that can be tapped?
Ms Angela Ryan:
We are going through a process right now. As we said earlier, we have applied through the national development plan for additional funding to support growth. Some of that additional funding will go towards those interim measures. As those projects get pushed out in time, we end up spending more money on interim measures, which is not value-add. We still need those projects so we end up duplicating spend. The important thing is to get those projects accelerated as much as we can.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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In the opening statement, reference was made to offers made of up to 52,000 units, while 41,000 housing units were executed. What happened to the 10,000 that were not executed? Are they delayed projects or did people find other means of providing what was needed?
Mr. Niall Gleeson:
They would never exactly match up. A developer might come to us and get the connection but decide to postpone a development for a period. It might fall into the following year. That would not be unusual. There are nearly 115,000 units associated with pre-connection inquiries. Some of this is just the whole development process.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I understand. I am just concerned some of it would involve stalling of projects. I am not saying it is Uisce Éireann's fault but I am trying to get an understanding of the activity. How many developer-provided wastewater treatment plants are estimated to be in place across the country that have not been taken in charge?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Is there an estimated cost of bringing all those up to standard and taking them in charge?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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This may be more a question for EirGrid but I will put it to ESB Networks. Uisce Éireann indicated it has headroom in the Dublin region of two to three years. What would ESB Networks estimate is its capacity for additional housing supply? How much headroom has it, based on current generation?
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
We are working closely with EirGrid at the moment to look, similar to Uisce Éireann, at interim measures. I do not think we are in a position to indicate exactly how much headroom we have. At distribution level, it is not just housing. There is significant demand for everything I have mentioned already. It is the likes of EV charging for industrial and commercial customers. The areas we are most concerned about are north and west Dublin. If you look at our capacity heat map online at distribution level, you can see in the colour coding that we have limited capacity in those areas. The next phase for us with EirGrid is to see what transmission capacity is available and whether we can optimise the operation of the network between distribution and transmission to get more capacity. After that, we will be dealing with customers in accordance with our licence on a first-come, first-served basis.
Mr. Rossiter mentioned things like transformers and the lead time for materials even to be able to deliver interim measures. There is a considerable degree of uncertainty in this regard, and that is why we are encouraging developers to come to us early to talk to us about their requirements and, ideally, have a connection agreement in place before starting construction. Having an electrical connection is the equivalent of having planning permission. We are working extremely hard to find solutions where we can.
To go back to the point on PR6, the situation is very similar to the Uisce Éireann situation. We have major projects concerning both transmission and distribution to be delivered, not only in the Dublin area but also right across the country, and it is critical that they be delivered as quickly as possible.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The next speaking slot is my own, as the last member. I have a couple of points on a matter that has been raised by members, namely, the role of temporary treatment plants to address the lack of capacity in the public system in certain towns. The second and third biggest towns in County Longford, Ballymahon and Edgeworthstown, have no capacity, so no houses can be built. We have a company in Longford that builds package sewage treatment systems and exports them all over the world. When can we see these used in County Longford to deliver housing? Could I have a straight answer to that?
With regard to data centres, it was said it was a case of first-come, first-served. How many houses, on average, use the same amount of power as a standard-sized data centre? Could it come down to the equivalent of 2,000 houses per data centre where supply is limited? We have seen shutdowns, particularly in the midlands. Lough Ree Power Station was shut down and a certain amount of network capacity was lost. The ESB is considering solar and wind generation and applications have been submitted in our county because it is on the line that would allow for feeding in. However, there has not been enough consultation with the people on the ground who will be affected and who have contributed significantly to both the ESB and Bord na Móna. A wind farm is being put on Bord na Móna lands that fed the power station. There are now significant applications from companies, particularly for solar farms. There is a solar farm of over 300 acres of good agricultural land proposed for Kenagh, a rural farming community. This is now driving up the price of land for people in agriculture and industry. I realise it is about generation, but could the witnesses comment on that?
Also raised was the issue of bringing water from the Shannon to the capital, Dublin. If the project commenced in the morning, what would the timeline be by comparison with the three years of serious supply problems? If the project started straight away, would Dublin be supplied in 2029? The ESB delegates might respond first.
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
I will talk about the development of solar generation and maybe also onshore wind generation. I do not believe I can talk specifically about the projects in the Cathaoirleach’s local area. Overall, there are targets under the climate action plan for 8 GW of solar and 9 GW of onshore wind generation, resulting in a total of 17 GW. Currently, we have around 7 GW of installed capacity, so there is growth expected in respect of these types of project to reach the targets set out in the plan. Obviously, this ties in very much with the decarbonisation journey.
Having been involved for many years on the generation side of the business and having spent the early part of my career in generation, I am aware that a huge effort was put into community engagement. I cannot speak about the specific projects but am happy to put the local community in touch with the stakeholder engagement team. I am sure it will be very willing to engage on the matter. It is fair to say, however, that existing infrastructure that can be utilised, such as transmission infrastructure and the distribution network, is beneficial. New lines might not need to be designed and built if there is existing infrastructure.
On data centres, I do not know whether there is a typical data centre size. They range from the very big right down to smaller ones connected to the distribution system. In the EirGrid documentation on installed capacity, one will see that EirGrid has contracted, at transmission level, data centres with a capacity of over 2 GW. We also have data centres that were connected at distribution level and contracted before the CRU rules came in. I am referring to the revised direction to the system operators in November 2021. I believe we have 37 data centres of different sizes connected at distribution level. I am not in a position today to compare the power used by one with the power used by a typical house, although it is of course the case that data centres have particular requirements when it comes to electricity loading. They represent what is part of wider increasing demand on the electricity network over recent years, both at transmission and distribution levels. They are obviously a significant contributor in this regard.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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What about the treatment plants?
Ms Angela Ryan:
The small wastewater treatment plants have two aspects: the assets themselves and the consents required to put those assets in place. The consents are the planning consent and the environmental consent to discharge. As is often the case, it is the consenting process that takes longest. When thinking about developer-provided infrastructure, this has to be borne in mind. It is sometimes not the asset or its installation that presents the difficulty; rather, it is the process for getting consents to build and operate it and discharge effluent into the public domain. Uisce Éireann is examining this and working with Government agencies on it. Particularly with regard to smaller areas, we believe there could be simplification of the process. I am referring to general binding rules that might speed it up. I hope they will come through significantly.
With regard to the question about the water supply project, WSP, it is actually quite a simple one. It involves a wastewater treatment plant of the scale of water treatment plants we have in existence. It is about the size of the Ballymore Eustace water treatment plant. It entails a long main pipeline, amounting to 170 km, and pipes of 1.6 m in diameter, which is about up to my chin. We already have pipelines of that size throughout the country. It is actually relatively simple. The estimated construction period for the contract would be about 50 months. If we had the procurement completed at this stage and were ready to dig into the ground, with all the consents, it would take only about 50 months to deliver. Mention was made of Arklow wastewater treatment plant earlier in the session. It took three years and six months to build, but it was 26 years in development from when it was initially proposed. The focus has to be on enabling the infrastructure to be built in the first place. Again, it is a question of the common good. Often, there can be objections to the infrastructure. When it is built, it usually goes under the radar. The Arklow plant is an award-winning installation, so we request that people consider some of these elements in the process.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank the delegates.
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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I will focus on Irish Water. I thank the delegates for appearing before us.
There are 800 developer-provided wastewater treatment plants, the cost of which could be between €500 million and €1 billion. Is the plan to deal with these before other developer-led wastewater treatment plants? Alternatively, is the plan to deal with both kinds in tandem?
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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That is good. What stage are we at with the developer on-site package? We develop systems in Galway and in this regard we have a good provider in Coffey’s. Where are we on saying we have a design, plan and package such that a developer can say it can provide facilities until such time as Uisce Éireann rolls into town?
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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I hear what Mr. Gleeson is saying but that is through the planning process. If people want to object to houses, they can object, but we have built-in the wastewater treatment as part of it.
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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What is the timeline for getting to the end of that process?
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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So, Uisce Éireann has no timeline for us to get to-----
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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-----Uisce Éireann is part of a collective. I want to know whether there is-----
Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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If Mr. Gleeson came from east Galway, as the Senator here beside me and I do, there is the capacity for eight in Gort. That is all of south Galway that does not have any capacity.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Last year, the ESB made €706 million in profit. The year before, it made €868 million. The year before that, it made €649 million. We are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. We have some of the highest electricity prices in Europe. What can be done to give some relief to people who are struggling to turn on their lights and keep their homes warm? At the same time, the ESB is making phenomenal profits.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I know all that, but I am asking on behalf of the person living in Gurranabraher or Mayfield who is worried about turning on the kettle. People are worried that, if they boil the kettle during the day when it is at peak time, it costs them extra. We know that some money goes into the Exchequer. I ask what can we do for ordinary people who are suffering with the cost of living. What can the ESB do?
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
The money goes into reinvestment into the network. We are on the network side of the business, so we invest in infrastructure. That is one place where the money goes when there are profits made by the company. The other place is into taxation and the other is into dividends that ultimately go back to the Government. That is-----
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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There is no relief. We have some of the highest electricity prices in Europe and they will stay the same. I have only 30 seconds left and I thank the ESB but apologies, but time is against us.
I want to make it clear to Uisce Éireann that I do not blame it for all of the problems we have with our water infrastructure. This is a result of generations of Governments failing to invest and the decision to take water services out of the local authorities and semi-privatise them, which was what was attempted by previous Governments. Now, Uisce Éireann is here trying to solve it. It does not have the budget to deliver the amount of water and wastewater infrastructure required for the number of houses we need. I encourage more investment in Uisce Éireann.
I have one simple question. In January, there was bad water in Cork and manganese levels were high. When was the HSE notified?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I am sorry, Deputy, but Senator Murphy is next.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Can I get the answer in writing after the meeting?
PJ Murphy (Fine Gael)
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I will be very quick, as I am being called to a vote in the Seanad. I listened to the answer given to my colleague, Senator Rabbitte, about the technical infrastructure task force. That answers a lot of the questions I had.
In terms of the number of unserviced villages in south Galway, the southern half of County Galway is particularly poorly serviced when it comes to wastewater infrastructure. It is geographically a very large area with not many large towns. It is mostly rural housing in the hinterlands of small villages. One-off rural housing is becoming a thing of the past. People want to live in their home parishes. The only way there is a future for people to live in their home parishes in rural Galway is if we find a way of building in the villages.
All of our villages are currently closed to development due to the lack of wastewater infrastructure. Therefore, the 22-to-30-year-old young couple from anywhere in south-east Galway are forced to leave their local area to find a place to live. The only solution to that in the short and medium term is to facilitate package treatment plants within our villages. It is urgently needed. We are losing our young people due to the lack of housing and wastewater infrastructure.
There are 14 settlements in my area and only one has capacity, that being, Kinvarra. That is an area the size of County Louth. Can the witnesses imagine if building could only take place in one village in County Louth? That is our reality in south Galway. Until we get a solution, our area is dying on its feet. I will leave them with that.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Is construction worker capacity an issue for the ESB or Uisce Éireann currently or as they scale up in terms of getting construction capacity for delivering their infrastructure? To the ESB, if we had a greater level of solar panel delivery on homes, is there the potential for that to provide electricity, and if there was proper retrofitting happening, would that in any way address the issue?
The ESB and Uisce Éireann are both State companies. If we had a State construction company that was hiring construction workers directly, like the ESB, would that offer potential to deliver housing? They are both semi-successful State companies. Do they have any comment on that?
Mr. Niall Gleeson:
On the capacity side, we have no problem with our supply chain. It has built up for delivery. This year, we will deliver €1.4 billion of capital investment. We are increasing it by €100 million to €150 million a year over the next five years. Our supply chain is able to keep up with that. The biggest thing for me is to keep construction companies in the country. We need to keep them incentivised so they can see that there is a growth path for them to be able to continue to invest in the country and keep things going.
The construction companies already do a good job and are well structured. Most of them know what they are doing. I am not sure we need a State agency to take that role on. The infrastructure for those companies to deliver is there. The State needs to guarantee we will keep spending money and that they should stay in this country to make a small profit.
Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:
On the issue of resources, we have been very successful over the last number of years in bringing people into the ESB to deal with our retirement profile and build our resources for the future. We need our contract partners to continue to grow. There are challenges in the sector in general in terms of the resources that are needed for what is coming. I do not just mean investment for us and the electricity network, but also for renewable projects. We have had support from the Government through the Department of enterprise to extend work permits to people coming from outside the EEA. That process has been under way for the last couple of years. It is important and will be a vehicle for us and our contract partners to grow the resources for the years ahead.
On the point on solar, we have seen huge growth in rooftop solar over the last couple of years. At this stage, we are close to approximately 140,000 individual homeowners having solar panels and it is growing at something in the region of 900 a week. It is growing very significantly. It helps with decarbonisation of the network and with our carbon emissions. It also helps householders with their bills because they are producing their own electricity. What it does not help with it is winter peak demand. Our network is under the most constraint when we have very high demand on winter days. That is the time we need our substations, and the generators in general, to be available to cope with peak demand. Obviously, solar generates more in daylight during the summer and less in the winter.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I will ask Uisce Éireann about housing units that are completed but not connected because of capacity issues. I am aware of a couple in my own county. How big does Uisce Éireann estimate the scale of that problem is nationwide? These are units that have been constructed but cannot be occupied because of capacity issues in water infrastructure.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That would be great, if Mr. Gleeson does not mind. I was given a few examples in my county in recent days on foot of the witnesses coming here. It would be great if that information could be given to me. Obviously, these properties should be a priority within the organisation if they are constructed but not occupied simply because the water infrastructure does not allow for that to happen. I would appreciate something on that in time, if possible.
In terms of the €10 billion in the capital plan, Mr. Gleeson outlined earlier and was explaining to Senator Casey, in terms of the additional €2 billion, that the €10 billion was not all about housing. What proportion of the €10 billion would it be estimated is focused on the delivery of housing?
Mr. Niall Gleeson:
People have asked me this question a bit, but it is very hard to break it out. If we take the example of the Arklow wastewater treatment plant that we just delivered, that was a compliance project. We had to build it because of an EU directive. It also removed wastewater going into the Avoca river but, because we invested in that project, we also doubled the capacity of Arklow. Of the €140 million we spent there, I do not know how we would break down how much was for housing, how much was for compliance and how much was for the environment. This is the problem we have across the board. It is not as simple as saying this amount is for housing.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Yes. Yet it is possible for it to be said that €2 billion extra is required for the extra housing.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is purely delivery.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I know the Chair is going to give me 30 seconds, so I will just make a point about water outages. We have a number of old water mains in my electoral area. Not to end on a negative note, but there has been criticism in terms of there being, for example, a break in a pipe on a Saturday afternoon and then it being Monday before a crew starts working on the replacement or repair of that mains. The outage impacts businesses, households and so on. Is Uisce Éireann trying to improve that situation and also the information provided when there is an outage? Obviously, it is an emergency situation and not a planned outage. The information flow, though, can be quite poor at times in terms of the time to service restoration and so on. I ask that Uisce Éireann look at these processes to see how it could improve them.
Mr. Niall Gleeson:
Yes, we will. On information, we have a text messaging system. I will do my own plug here. It is possible to sign up for it on the website. People put in their eircode and their phone number and we will try to keep them updated on issues happening in their area. We think the whole country should sign up for it. We have had issues with the accuracy, but we are improving all the time. We do try to look at where we are having repeated bursts and getting in and doing them, if the Deputy wants us to look into areas.
Ms Margaret Attridge:
We are very reliant on the information coming back from the field. We are trying to simplify the process, improve our training for our field staff and use the technology to get the information back from the field. This is critical to updating the SMS messaging and our website to ensure everybody has that information in a timely fashion.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am over my time. I thank the witnesses.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I call Deputy Joe Cooney.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I ask that the information Deputy McGrath looked for be circulated to all of us, please.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Arklow has been mentioned a few times and one of the members mentioned he was at the official opening last year or whenever it was. Was that a developer-led modular system in Arklow or was it put in place by Uisce Éireann?
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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It is great to see projects like that delivered, in fairness, and, hopefully, we will see more of them. Going back to upgraded treatment plants, we have 80 houses being held up out in two rural parts of County Clare, with 60 in one area and 20 in the other area. They are in Kilkishen and Ruan. It is the capacity that is the problem in Kilkishen. Two years have passed and there has been no movement whatsoever. We have been on to Uisce Éireann but received no reply regarding an upgrade. Could we be given an idea of what could happen in those situations or how we could move this situation forward?
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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That is fair enough. I ask Mr. Gleeson to be sure to come back to me. The second area is Ruan, another village in the rural part of County Clare. There are another 20 houses there. There is an issue with the percolation area in the treatment plant. There are fine treatment plants in both those areas and 80 houses are being held up for development. That is not good enough, so perhaps Mr. Gleeson would check out the situation in Ruan as well and get back to me.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Gleeson very much for his time.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I call Deputy Conor D. McGuinness.
Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Rural communities are being hollowed out right across the State because of the housing crisis. Towns and villages are facing demographic cliff edges in many cases. Young people cannot buy or build homes where they grew up right across rural Ireland. In many cases, this is down to inaction by the Government, but in many other cases, it is down to a lack of critical infrastructure, especially water services.
This question is directed to Mr. Gleeson. I will give two examples. There are major problems with water in Lismore, County Waterford. I know Mr. Gleeson cannot be aware of every case, but I imagine he has heard of Lismore because there are outages every other week and major issues. It has been raised at national level. The lack of water capacity has meant 20 homes are being held back from being developed. These are 20 family homes in a small town in rural west Waterford. There is also Bunmahon in County Waterford. It is on the Copper Coast, where there should be pristine beaches. Raw sewage, though, is entering the mouth of the River Mahon and going straight out to the coast. Again, there has been no investment in water services. Not only is this creating environmental harm, and the EPA has highlighted this with Uisce Éireann, it is also holding back the development of homes. This is another village with young people who cannot buy or build homes in their own area. When are we going to see action on this issue?
Mr. Niall Gleeson:
I am familiar with Lismore. We did not build the plant in Lismore. It is a very small treatment plant about the size of a large garden shed, with a single pipe running into the town. That is what we inherited. We now have to go into Lismore, build a reservoir and have some stand-by measures. Again, this is the kind of work we are replicating all around the country. We are undertaking these projects.
Ms Angela Ryan:
That is an untreated agglomeration. We have an untreated agglomeration study, UTAS, programme. We have progressed a significant number of the untreated agglomerations. Arklow is one. It is in the context of a European Court of Justice case for untreated agglomerations, so it is within a process. Generally, anything remaining on the UTAS programme usually involves an issue with consent. We have a programme of work there and I can get the Deputy an update on the timelines for the individual project. It is not, however, due to a lack of funding or progress by Uisce Éireann.
Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I think a very willing community would be found in Bunmahon, in particular.
Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I acknowledge that all these issues are not of Uisce Éireann's making and it asked the Government for significant funding a year and a half ago to address some of these issues but it did not materialise. It is important, however, for me to have mentioned those two examples. I thank the witnesses for their responses.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We will not mention water charges. Before we finish up, I will mention a positive. I ask Uisce Éireann to keep in mind that we have had a significant problem in the south Longford and Ballymahon area on a specific length of line that has burst more than 25 times in recent months. The pipe is servicing several towns and rural areas and is close to the Center Parcs site. Only in the last week, we have got a commitment that a contractor is to be there in quarter 3. I ask that this happen.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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As I said, it is causing significant issues for hundreds of residents in the area and in several towns.
Ms Margaret Attridge:
We acknowledge that, and in the meantime we are also installing pressure loggers on that length of mains. Many of the bursts are being caused by pressure fluctuations resulting from big draw-offs by large consumers in the area. We are trying to work with those large consumers as well to manage those draw-offs and minimise the impact on people.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I am aware of that and I am delighted a contractor will be there. I think quarter 3 was the commitment we were given.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I just ask that this would happen for the residents. I thank Ms Attridge.
That concludes our consideration. I thank the representatives from Uisce Éireann and ESB Networks for coming in and answering the considerable number of questions posed by the members. We appreciate them giving us their time. As I said at the beginning of the meeting, I ask them to pass on our thanks to the staff. As a committee representing all parties and none, but ultimately representing the taxpayers, we thank the staff for the work they do and the long hours they put in rectifying faults with both systems.