Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his response. Previous EPA reports have drawn attention to this issue and while I appreciate the statement the Minister of State has made to the House, I point out there are plans that predate Irish Water in respect of treating and catering for the expansion of our cities, particularly here in Dublin, that are pushing up daisies. For example, the greater Dublin strategic drainage study, GDSDS, report has been around for over a decade and yet it has not been implemented because of politicians and communities standing in the way of critical environmental infrastructure, and I really do mean that, because some of it is happening in my own constituency. I am certainly not raising this issue to garner votes; I am raising it because I believe that it is right to do so and because there are beaches and rivers in this city that cannot be used because of the presence of effluent in our watercourses. It is essential that urgent action is taken - indeed, a decade's worth of action needs to be taken, as the EPA has highlighted.

Irish Water needs certainty regarding its funding and while I appreciate the comments the Minister of State has made in respect of the budget, our citizens also require certainty regarding the political nerve to deliver on this critical infrastructure. We need to end political chicanery around questions of what infrastructure goes where and the reasons behind those campaigns, which invariably are due to a lack of information in the public domain or worse, misinformation, that is sometimes perpetuated by politicians. We have a responsibility to ensure that when these projects are launched, put up on websites, discussed in our communities or mentioned by our local media, that we are informed as to what they are, what they will result in and most importantly, what they will not result in.

In conclusion, it is critical that we ensure that Irish Water is actually able to meet the targets that we set for it, not just in respect of the capital plan but in respect of the environmental impact that it has. As the EPA has said, any post-Covid-19 stimulus package should include development that has that climate action focus at the core of what it hopes to achieve.

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