Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I know the Minister of State is not the direct line Minister for this project, but I have to say with respect that the question has not been answered at all. I asked for the costs incurred to date. The Dáil should receive an answer to that question. This is a large capital project and the only cost I was ever able to get an estimate for was in the region of €1 billion to €1.4 billion. That is a lot of money. We need to get a handle on the costs that have been incurred to date. I remain absolutely opposed to this type of development and I really do believe that the Government should go back and look at what it has proposed. The proposal is now four, five or six years in existence. It proposes to treat waste to the very basic standard of secondary treatment rather than tertiary. The model we are proceeding with is flawed. Thousands of residents in the area agree. These people are not approaching this matter from a "not in my back yard" position, but rather as residents who already have 15 wastewater treatment plants in the area. This plant is effectively to become a treatment plant for all of the waste in the greater Dublin area. The waste will be piped through an orbital sewer around the M50 and into a wastewater treatment plant at Clonshaugh - a 50 acre site - and then out through a special area of conservation from the Baldoyle estuary. One could not make this up. This would not be planned in this way now. I am calling for a real cost-benefit analysis.

I am also calling for those responsible to halt now and look at it before we have a situation like what has happened at St. James's Hospital where the State has run away with itself and wasted €1.4 billion or €1.5 billion that was not actually required. Will the Minister of State ask officials within the Department and Irish Water to give us the exact spend to date on the project and details of the estimated cost of delivery?

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