Frank O'Rourke (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for that positive response on progressing those lands at Hazelhatch. They are defined as a key development area and strategic location.

On the wastewater plant being upgraded, which was commissioned 12 or 14 months ago, the wastewater plant in Leixlip was upgraded to the tune of €32 million. The difficulty now is the infrastructure needed to get the wastewater to that. Irish Water has carried out a number of site investigations and my understanding from working with the local authority is that it hopes to progress the start of the project some time in 2019, which would be timely because it would take some time to put together the master plan.

The key question is how we can get the master plan done. The key stakeholder, the landowners, are willing to carry out the master plan. They will put in all the financial resources needed to do that but they need guidance and direction from Kildare County Council as the lead player in this. We would not expect the local authority to do the master plan. It would not be fair because it is not resourced. It is under pressure doing other local area plans and dealing with planning applications for Kildare that are coming in on a regular basis. We are not looking to the local authority to resource this work on this. The landowners are willing to do all the resourcing of it. They merely want to get the local authority to engage with them, bring them into a meeting and get the process started in terms of the guidelines, being told what to do and being given a template. Once that happens, the process will progress from that point, but Kildare County Council informs me it needs some communication from the Department to get it kick started. As soon as that happens and all those stakeholders engage, my job, and the Minister of State’s, is finished because they will start the discussion and the planning. It will take whatever length of time it takes to complete it but at least it will be commenced. The difficulty is that nothing has commenced between July and now. It would be welcome if that could happen as soon as possible.

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