Seán Power (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)

The two locations have been combined into a single project to avail of the economic benefits offered by the completion of the Limerick main drainage treatment plant at Bunlickey. Pumping effluent from both locations to Bunlickey will avoid the more costly option of either upgrading the existing obsolete treatment plants or constructing new replacements. It means less running costs for Limerick County Council in the long term.

Limerick County Council received approval from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government last year to appoint engineering consultants to prepare contract documents for the scheme. The Minister understands that the consultants are now working on the contract documents and that the council has received tenders for site investigations. The results of these investigations are an essential component of the contract documents on which contractors base their prices for the construction of the scheme. In addition, approval has issued to the council's proposals to procure the scheme on the basis of a conventional type contract rather than as a design-build-operate contract.

The scheme is needed to facilitate development in both areas and the Minister understands that some developers had contacted the county council with proposals they considered would help to advance the works more quickly. It would be a matter for the council, taking into account public procurement roles and value for money issues, to decide on the merits of such proposals and, if it decided to proceed with them, to submit the details to the Department for approval. The Department would not stand in the way of any approach that would help to expedite the scheme, subject to the necessary safeguards I mentioned.

The Minister, Deputy Roche, can assure the Deputy that when the council's contract documents are submitted to his Department for approval they will be given early attention. The necessary funding has been allocated for the scheme in the Department's water services investment programme and, like the Deputy, we are anxious to see work on the scheme start at the earliest possible date.

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