Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his question. The Department builds in strategic water policy and infrastructural delivery programmes around the National Planning Framework 2018-2040 and the National Development Plan 2018-2027. Investment is primarily delivered through Irish Water while the Department operates the rural water programme directly.

The programme for Government supports the uptake of Irish Water’s Small Towns and Villages Growth Programme 2020 2024, which would provide water and wastewater growth capacity in smaller settlements that would not be otherwise provided in Irish Water's capital investment programme. Complementary to the programme, my Department is currently examining wastewater requirements in the context of villages and settlements that do not have public wastewater infrastructure. This process is at an advanced stage.

Housing estates that are not taken in charge by local authorities and do not have their wastewater services connected to the public network rely instead on infrastructure provided by the estate developers. My Department is currently operating a multi-annual resolution programme to provide funding for the progressive resolution of housing estates with legacy developer-provided water services infrastructure. Significant challenges exist, however, in realising solutions for all of those problem areas.

As to possible future reliance on developer-provided infrastructure, experience has shown that this infrastructure is often temporary and not properly maintained. This can lead to environmental and public health risk. Policy in the past had allowed for the developer to provide water and wastewater infrastructure as an interim solution, which would become redundant or partly redundant on the public scheme that would be constructed. However, in reality many of these estates that were constructed using developer-provided wastewater infrastructure were not of critical mass and size and were geographically remote from the Irish Water network. It is difficult to envisage a situation where reliance on developer-provided wastewater infrastructure could be supported more in the future.

Finally, the draft development plan guidelines for planning authorities published in August 2021 has a strong emphasis on proposals for new developments being clearly based on availability of new infrastructure, including wastewater infrastructure, to enable development to take place.

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