Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute the debate. It is important that we have a discussion on water services and wastewater treatment throughout the country. It is fundamental. In the few minutes available to me I will raise the issue of the wastewater treatment plants that are inadequate, and in some places non-existent, in some of the smaller villages. If they were to be prioritised and moved through the system, they could be a stepping stone to a huge amount of badly-needed housing in rural communities but also to housing that is such an issue nationally. When there is a great deal of work done at local level by the local authorities and again at national level through the Departments, officials and Ministers, to get particular schemes onto a programme, there is frustration in trying to get them through the various hoops and regulations to get boots on the ground and get the investment. While the funding is committed to it in the programme, it takes a huge effort to get the result on the ground. We welcome the initiative brought in last year through the small towns and villages scheme in close co-operation with local authorities to try to get those water schemes prioritised rather than have Irish Water. Concern and a degree of scepticism exist about the fact that the larger urban centres are being prioritised by Irish Water with a view to enabling the badly-needed houses to be built.

However, that policy, on the whole, is not a good policy. It is not a policy to get what we want, which is housing throughout the country and balanced regional development.

In the Duhallow region, we have huge investment going into the Boherbue wastewater treatment plant, which will allow that village to expand. The development proposed there includes a nursing home and further housing and a cheese plant is being envisaged there. I know there was a huge amount of work done by Councillor Bernard Moynihan and Cork County Council to get that through the planning system and all its various stages. It is great to see boots on the ground and the work going on that project.

In addition, last year, through the good offices of the Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, Castlemagner was included in the small towns and villages programme. I welcome the initiative and the help that he gave us on that. However, the challenge is getting this scheme from the funding being committed to it to delivering what we are trying to do, which is to ensure that extra houses can be built in the community. Castlemagner would be very well known to the Acting Chairman. It is a central enough location and there has been huge development there. It is a small village that has grown. The challenge from Cork County Council’s point of view and from Irish Water is the various different stages that have to be gone through.

Everybody has goodwill. Many projects around the country would have a certain amount of antipathy towards them or a lack of goodwill, but there is a huge amount of goodwill in respect of these projects. There is an onus on us to try to get the projects through the system.

Glantane has been crying out for a sewage treatment plan for many a long day and the lack of one has stifled development in that community. Again, it is a very centrally located community that would benefit enormously from it. The Department, Irish Water and Cork County Council should look and apprise themselves of the challenges that are there and the difficult hoops that have be gone through. Is there a way of streamlining that and getting to the end game faster?

It behoves us as public representatives to listen to the challenges. On a daily basis, we hear about our water quality and the discharge of raw or untreated sewage into rivers and streams. People have to comply with many challenges in respect of the various water quality and other environmental regulations when building housing developments, once-off houses or, indeed, perhaps a development that would not be ordinarily in the countryside. They have to go through all the hoops. It behoves us to make sure that we are putting our money where we are talking to make sure that these schemes are fully funded.

If we are to be brutally honest with ourselves, the challenge is that there are an awful lot of schemes being announced and we are overloading people to try to get to the end game. We need to look at whether the system can be streamlined. It has to be a priority where is quite clearly an issue in terms of contamination to soil or underground water from existing or inadequate wastewater treatment plants. This has to be dealt with as a matter of urgency. If something is under private ownership, such as an individual house or whatever, and there is an inspection, there is a serious onus on the individual to make sure that their septic tank or otherwise is complying with the regulations. When it is in public ownership, we must make sure that the same onus is on us to make sure we are complying with it and there is no issue.

Those are two of the schemes that I would like to see further work on. I appreciate the co-operation of the officials in the Department, Irish Water and the county council. However, sometimes the officials get frustrated as well because of the various hoops related to planning and various regulations and how they are to get through all of those. We should look at it to see whether it can be prioritised. Ultimately, that will end in what we are trying to do in solving the housing crisis, not just in urban Ireland, but throughout the country. Rural Ireland can play an enormous part in solving the crisis.

I thank the officials in Irish Water, Cork County Council and, indeed, the Department for ensuring that the Boherbue scheme got the go-ahead. However, many more villages need to have a wastewater plant.

There is another issue in terms of water quality and the supply of water. The policy has been to shut down smaller, rural schemes and have one major scheme. However, some of those schemes should be retained. Particularly this summer during the drought, there were challenges with water supply. We should not close everything down; we should keep them on standby because they may be need to booster the system as we go into drier summers. That should be looked at as well from an Irish Water point of view and an operational point of view. There are many challenges relating to water and wastewater treatment throughout the country, but we should not lose sight of the fact that it is an enabler to ensure that we have quality housing for people going into the future in both urban and rural Ireland.

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