Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The National Economic and Social Council has regularly referred to the issue of water quality and the need to address the very poor levels of water quality as a result of the discharge in multiple locations across this country of untreated sewage. In my area of Dún Laoghaire alone, untreated sewage goes into Dublin Bay at 11 points. I see the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, issuing figures suggesting things have slightly improved, but a large caveat must accompany those figures because testing only takes place during what is called the bathing season. My colleague, Councillor Melissa Halpin, moved a motion in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council seeking year-round testing. She was basically told the council did not have the resources to do that.

Ringsend treatment plant has an ultraviolet treatment machine that can reduce the bacterial load of sewage going into Dublin Bay, but it is only used for a few months of the year. I presume that is for cost reasons. The decrepit state of the water infrastructure means that when it rains we get big discharges of sewage into the sea, because the surface water mixes with sewage and then overflows. That happens because we have not rehabilitated the water infrastructure. This is a pretty poor show from the perspective of all the people swimming, more now than ever before, but equally in respect of the damage being done to biodiversity in Dublin Bay and other places in the country where we have similar situations, such as in Clifden and Galway, for example.

At the very moment all this is happening, workers in the local authorities are being transferred to Irish Water. They do not want to go, and their conditions of employment are threatened and undermined. That is occurring because Irish Water is failing in its duty to rehabilitate the infrastructure and to give us the water treatment required to prevent the pollution of our seawaters and rivers with sewage.

Therefore, it seems to me that the Government needs to start to listen to the NESC on this and recognise the urgent issue of addressing the decrepit nature of our foul water infrastructure and water quality.

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