Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming in. I have plenty of time so I want to focus on an area he will be familiar with, namely, Duncannon and the water and sewage treatment issues there.

There are two villages in the running to be chosen for a new treatment plant in County Wexford. One of them is my home village of Ramsgrange. On all available evidence it appears to be a no-brainer that the plant be located there. Ramsgrange is an unusually large village with a secondary school of over 500 pupils, a primary school of up to 100 pupils, a supermarket, a church, a pub in the centre of the village, a day centre and South West Wexford, which is a local business hub. The installation of the treatment plant in the local area of Ballyhack and Arthurstown would allow access, if Ramsgrange was allowed to join it, to new and existing dwellings for planning permission. Equally, if we join the dots here we can save money because the secondary school has planning permission for an extension, in which case the Department of Education will have to fund upwards of €150,000 to provide sewage treatment for the extension. A survey has gone on with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and EU funding gave in excess of €500,000 to bring the farmers in the area into a scheme that would restore the blue flag for Duncannon beach. That has been very successful but at the same time it has reduced the percentage of effluent going into the open sea down to probably 13%. The problem is that 13% is still there to go back into the sea if Ramsgrange is not joined.

We have not regained our blue flag in Duncannon. It is a coastal village. The Minister of State has been there. There are huge plans for it from a tourism perspective but this is also an area where the infrastructure was in absolute chaos this summer. For almost a month in August people had limited water. Some days there was none, on other days there was some and it was always at reduced pressure, meaning people could not use their showers, washing machines or dishwashers. They could hardly wash up, never mind wash themselves, and this went on for a month. While the sewage treatment plant work was being carried out the contractor, against the advice of Wexford County Council and when we were all on reduced water pressure, decided to fill the treatment plant's tanks with water. They took every drop of water out of the reservoir. When it was discovered by the council and Irish Water combined, we were left with a series of air locks through the whole system that lasted for a couple of weeks in different areas. It was a nightmare. We had businesses that supply food that had to close. The supermarket had to close its deli. The response from our local Wexford County Council water engineers was phenomenal. They did everything they could. With Irish Water, the contact was there, there is not doubt about it, but there was nothing we could do; there was no water. Irish Water delivered tanks to certain areas but it means so much to join the dots.

We talk about resourcing Irish Water but we must look at how it spends its money. It makes the most sense in the world from everybody's perspective to join Ramsgrange into that wastewater treatment plant. It is the next village from the three that are in it and it is the biggest village of the three. It would give us access to housing, which is so badly needed. On top of that I must say I have had a lot of interaction with people in this area who are very disgruntled about Irish Water because they feel they are currently paying for water. If you have planning permission and you just want the utility to come and connect you it is €4,000. All Irish Water is doing is turning on a tap and it is €4,000. You are paying the contribution to Wexford County Council for roads and water. People feel they are paying for it. They hear €10 million of Irish Water's budget is being paid out in performance bonuses - I am assuming they are performance bonuses because I do not know what else they would be for. My interaction as a public servant is mostly with the local Wexford County Council engineers, who are phenomenal. Dan McCartan in New Ross spent his whole summer engaging with the community who have had no water 24-7. It is as simple as that. There are many more like him, such as Billy Harris. People have given up their weekends to deal with the water shortage. I do not know why that €10 million was paid out but we really cannot afford bonuses when we have an infrastructure that is failing all over the country. It is something I will be happy to tackle when Uisce Éireann appears in front of the Committee of Public Accounts. I do not want to see moneys expended in a way that is not deserved. I want to see us joining the dots between the Department of Education and the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications.

Virtually all of the septic tanks in Ramsgrange need upgrading, which would be at a cost of maybe €15,000 to €16,000. If we get the wastewater treatment plant they can probably join. We do not know what the cost is but it would be significantly less to aging people who built their houses some years ago. That is what I mean by joining the dots. We have people who cannot afford €15,000 no matter what the Department with responsibility for the environment says. It does not matter what fine the Department institutes or whether it brings people to court, because they cannot afford it.

On the €5,000 the council will give for the septic tank grant, the outlay has to be spent before people can recoup the grant. That is just not practical. At local level the engineers have done everything to make sure the dots are joined and the wastewater treatment plant goes ahead in this area, simply because it makes more sense and it is the practical, value-for-money thing to do. It will go in front of a board and the decision will be made. I am not aware exactly of what is located in the other village but I do know it only costs €2.5 million. When I say "only", I am benchmarking that against the €10 million in performance bonuses. We will have a lot of angry people if it is not granted, for the simple reason that it makes no sense to pay bonuses when we have poor infrastructure and people are paying for it one way or the other by having to actually buy water for the whole month of August.

I am glad to see that we have the initiative now to separate and bring in water as an entity on its own. The constitutional referendum was promised and I assume it will come in time. I believe we are paying currently. We have an infrastructure that is 60 or 70 years old, particularly in rural Ireland. There has been no effort to replace it. All we keep doing is putting a sticking plaster on it. It is not working from the point of view of value for money. Three weeks ago, I saw a story about leaks on the front page of my local newspaper, Wexford People. We have a man in Wexford, John Hayes, with a leak in his garden that expends 3 l of water per minute. In the 56 years he has lived there, he estimates that 88 million l have been lost. It is treated water. The council has tested it but it cannot find the source. He says that at that rate he has piped it in a way that his garden does not flood. How much is it costing us to lose 88 million l of water for which we cannot find the source?

I know the Minister is passionate about the environment and believes this has to happen in respect of the whole country but €1.2 billion into the budget of Uisce Éireann will go nowhere unless we start to join dots, take practical measures and listen to our local engineers. We have spent €500,000 of EU money cleaning up farms in the area and still we cannot make a straightforward decision. It is nonsensical that there has to be a competition as to who gets what first. I appeal for a more practical approach. We could save the Department of Education €150,000 to and we could probably use the balance of the money left from the EU fund to start to do the same thing with farmers in Kilmore in respect of effluent treatment. Lots of things could be done. We can save the county councils the €5,000 grants provided to upgrade septic tanks. These are all the things we could do to save money if we connected Ramsgrange to the wastewater treatment plant.

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