Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It has to be said that any and all investment in infrastructure and services is very welcome but undoubtedly one of the most vexatious issues we are faced with in rural Ireland at present is the provision of water services. At times, Irish Water has almost a pariah status in rural Ireland. Like many of the speakers, I will localise my concerns. A common theme across many of them is the delay in connections, especially for one-off rural houses where, on average, people are lucky if they get their connection within 16 months. All rural Deputies have their own examples. There are newly-wed couples who cannot move into a house because they do not have water. There is a new Bill whereby they are required to have an air-to-water system but cannot move into their house because they will not have any heat, despite embracing everything they were meant to do in respect of environmental carbon reduction. One of the most poignant cases I have had in recent months was that of recently widowed young woman. She and her late husband built what they thought was their dream home. She was looking forward, although it would admittedly be rather lonely, to moving into her new house and the fact that it would be something of a new start for her. Yet, more than one year on and several months after the engineer from the county council came to look at it, she is still no further in getting a water connection.

Irish Water is particularly slow on the delivery of services. The Minister of State will be well familiar with the fact, as he is based just up the road from Edgeworthstown and Ballymahon, the second and third largest towns in County Longford, that both of them are crippled with inadequate wastewater treatment systems. Irish Water has committed to me and the local authority that additional capacity will be in place for both towns by 2025. That is a wafer-thin commitment, when we got a commitment in 2021 that we would have that capacity by 2023. The reality is nobody believes these timelines from Irish Water. They are wholly inadequate.

One of the most disturbing cases we are dealing with in Longford is the pumping station at Lisbrack Downs where the family living immediately beside it, every time the heavy rains come, and needless to say the past five to six weeks have been particularly traumatic for them, sewage spills out of the pumping station into their garden and virtually into their house. They are prisoners in their own home. Irish Water told us in February 2021 that a consultant engineering firm had been appointed to review the catchment area pumping station and rising main. An initial draft report was produced and a workshop held. Since then, we have had radio silence on the issue, while all the time this family is in a heartbreaking situation.

It is critical that there is momentum behind the provision of water and waste services. It is fair to say that the Irish public has lost faith in the capacity and ability of Irish Water to deliver a service. I appreciate that we have record investment in the development and delivery of infrastructure but this has to be backed by a sustained commitment to putting the necessary services into towns and villages that have been badly let down heretofore.

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