Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach and the Deputy for his comments. It is agreed that Irish Water will need years and significant investment to address deficiencies in our water and wastewater infrastructure. Irish Water’s primary function is to provide clean safe drinking water to customers and to treat wastewater and return it safely to the environment. In providing these critical services Irish Water plays a role in enabling social and economic growth and protecting the environment as well as the health and safety of the public. Irish Water, as a single national utility, is taking a strategic and nationwide approach to asset planning, investment, and meeting customer requirements. Our priority objective is to bring and maintain public water and wastewater services to acceptable international benchmarks and verifiably independent monitoring and reporting. Irish Water has been successful in achieving a 44% reduction in the amount of untreated and inadequately treated wastewater being discharged into our rivers lakes and the sea since 2014.

However, I note the Deputy’s comments and will certainly follow up within our Department on the recording and logging of complaints. I will also seek a specific timeline and further detail from Irish Water on this specific item. It is important that we get clarification on this and more specifics to try to move this issue along. As the Deputy quite rightly outlined, this has been recurring and dragging on for far too long. Gabhaim buíochas.

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