Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I raise with the Minister of State the Kilcummin sewerage scheme where work is now under way to connect residents from Kilcummin to the existing Killarney scheme. I ask that the connection for residents and others be left adjacent to their properties, on the roadside at their boundary fence. This is not happening at present. I ask the Minister of State to provide a funding incentive to help with the connection fee. Residents are being asked to pay in excess of €3,900 for connection.

The scheme is 3.7 km long and the project is to take sewerage from Kilcummin village down along the road to meet with the Killarney scheme and to treat it in the Killarney treatment plant. The cost is approximately €9 million. I had a long battle starting in 2004 to get the scheme going. It was to go ahead in 2008 but the contractor was disqualified and we had to start all over again. Then the country went bust and the economy went AWOL and that is where the scheme has remained since. Some 90 houses from Páirc Chuimín estate will be connected and 30 houses from Mountain View, as they had existing plants which will be connected to the scheme. Our Lady of Lourdes nursing home will also be connected, as it is at the start of the scheme. However, the residents of between 50 and 70 single houses along the road through Ballynamaunagh, Inchycullane and Coolcorcoran have been told they will have to pay €3,900 for a connection. On top of this, they will have to pay for the work to take the connection to their houses themselves. This is a new departure by Irish Water, as heretofore when all the other new schemes in Barraduff, Rathmore, Farranfore, Milltown and Ardfert in Kerry were progressed, the connections were taken from the main pipe and placed at the boundary wall free of charge adjacent to the residences. In Kilcummin, however, people must now pay a connection fee of €3,900. Irish Water says this has been approved by the regulator, the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CER, to charge this sum. As this is a new departure in the provision of sewage facilities, will the Government make up the cost being charged by Irish Water for the residents' connections?

This is a big mistake. The connections should be made now while the work is going on. The Kilcummin road is closed to facilitate the works. In places, the main pipe is down 6 m to 7 m. If the connections are not taken out at the mains now, it is unlikely to happen in the future. Will the Minister put the contractor in funds to make sure these connections are done now while the work is ongoing? The purpose of the scheme in the first place was to prevent pollution and protect the Deenagh river and the beautiful lakes of Killarney from algal bloom. The full benefit of the scheme, which is paid for with public money, will not be realised if all the residences along the road are not connected to the scheme. In all the previous schemes, when the local authority did the job, the connections were made to walls of people's properties so that all they had to do was take it from there to their homes.

If it is not done now and it is left until a later date, there will be disruption and other complications.

See this speech in context