Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and appreciate the response but it raises a number of questions. Even the very fact the Minister of State’s answer has acknowledged that the plant is in breach of its nitrate emissions in terms of its licence since 2015, although it is not connected directly to odour and noise, is a recognition in itself of this and is not acceptable. Five years on Irish Water is still in breach of its licence, and nothing or very little is being done to remedy this.

The second point is that capital investment is required but Irish Water has not identified to us what the specific issues are, how it is going to address them, or most important, given us a timeline. That is the very least that is required if a plant of this nature, as important as it is to the development of the Cork Harbour region, is in breach of this licence. We should be given a definitive timeline and detail as to exactly how it will be upgraded.

As I said, there are about 6,000 housing units pencilled in for that area of Cork over the next few years, not to mention all of the industrial and commercial activity that will feed into this wastewater treatment plant. As I said, it is unacceptable that Irish Water is continuing to ignore public representatives and its responsibilities to agencies like the EPA in reporting these incidents.

While I appreciate the response, it gives me very little comfort in terms of resolving the problems any time soon. It reflects very poorly on Irish Water which thinks this is acceptable in Cork North-Central, in the case of the Carrigrennan plant, and, as mentioned earlier, in Belgooly in west Cork. I am afraid that is indicative of its logging of complaints right across the country. I will be interested to know if any other public representatives will do similar research over the coming months on other wastewater treatment plants in their areas, which are managed by Irish Water, because there is a long story here. Irish Water is not covering itself in any glory.

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