Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I am pleased to reassure the House, on behalf of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, that there is no imminent threat to water quality in Dublin Bay. This is clearly demonstrated by the Environmental Protection Agency's bathing water quality report for 2007, which shows all bathing areas from Skerries to Killiney comply with EU standards. Indeed, Dollymount Strand has also gained a blue flag in recognition of premium water quality.

I am also pleased to confirm that Dublin City Council reports that the Ringsend plant consistently meets the required effluent standards for treated waste water. The Minister is aware of suggestions in recent days that the plant is operating beyond capacity but this needs to be qualified in order for the full picture to be seen. Capacity can be calculated in a number of ways, namely, from influent flow, biochemical oxygen demand, BOD, suspended solids, chemical oxygen demand and nutrients, each of which would give a different capacity figure. When a plant is being designed, it must have sufficient capability to deal with load fluctuations higher than the design average on all these parameters.

The design capacity of the Ringsend plant is a nominal 1.64 million population equivalent, average load, based on BOD. The plant provides secondary treatment to approximately 99% of waste water arising in the Dublin region. It deals with the waste water treatment needs of approximately 1.1 million people, with the non-domestic load associated with areas as far apart as Dún Laoghaire, Ratoath, Ashbourne and Portmarnock. The critical fact is that the required effluent standards are being met. This has transformed water quality in Dublin Bay and that improvement is being maintained.

While water quality in Dublin Bay has greatly improved, the Minister is aware that there were protracted delays during the commissioning and testing of the new plant in 2002, when difficulties were experienced in achieving the required performance standards. In particular, he is conscious of the odour problems that were experienced by residents in his and Deputy Creighton's constituency within a short time of the plant coming into operation and that have occurred intermittently since. Works under way to resolve this issue are due for completion later this year.

To resolve as many as possible of the questions surrounding the design and capacity of the plant and past efforts to deal with the odour issue, the Minister is arranging for an independent examination of the design parameters of the works to determine whether they adequately addressed existing and projected loads at the time they were approved. A broad range of issues will be considered during this examination. These include the appropriateness of the design capacity of the plant, having regard to the information available at that time; the volume and timing of actual waste water loads going to the plant by comparison to the load projections when the design capacity was determined; and the factors that contributed to the odour problems and the effectiveness of the actions taken to deal with such odours. The Minister expects to be in a position very shortly to appoint a suitably qualified person to carry out the examination and report back to him before the end of the summer.

See this speech in context