Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his reply and taking a hands-on approach. I am afraid my praise stops at this point because we will discuss sludge.

It is very difficult to make out what is happening in Galway. We have a water treatment plan, which is good. It is working and it is fine, but there has been no upgrading of anything since 2006. I have a reply from the Minister of State setting out, I presume, a reply from Uisce Éireann. I also have a contribution to the public accounts committee, to which I will return. Somewhere, there is a serious misunderstanding or misinformation - I do not know which; I am no expert. I will try to be as clear as I can, notwithstanding that we are talking about sludge.

We have an EPA report and there is an ongoing open investigation into Uisce Éireann in Galway city. We might think progress is being made, but there cannot be balanced regional development in our city or county without infrastructure. Níl aon bhunstruchtúr i gCarraroe. Tá an séarachas amh ag dul isteach san uisce leis na blianta. I will mention Carraroe for the record. Things have been going straight into the water for years. The wrong site was picked. In fairness to Uisce Éireann, it inherited that from the county council, but it did not change the project and instead went ahead with it until it could not proceed any more because someone else got planning permission on the site. There was daft and blind behaviour – I take the word "blind" back. There was silly behaviour.

We will stick to Galway city. The EPA has an open investigation. In June last year, there was an outage in the Oranmore pump station and the EPA went to check it when it was reported. The EPA found 70 overflows into the water that were never reported to it. It has an open compliance investigation in place. On 70 occasions, there have been overflows. It is concerned that these overflows and discharges are things other than stormwater and so on. The duration and quantity of those overflows are not known and there is the potential for pollution.

There are pump stations in Oranmore and Merlin Park and there is a wastewater treatment plant. The collection service, including those pump stations, is not fit for purpose. Uisce Éireann has come back to the Minister of State to say, more or less, that it is dealing with these things and what has been stated is not accurate. The only application is for Merlin Park. There is nothing in respect of Oranmore.

Mr. Sean Laffey, in his evidence to the public accounts committee, stated: "The siphons under the River Corrib are not at risk of collapse. We have had them surveyed." Part of that is correct. One is not at risk of collapse, but the other is.

I have a report here from McBreen Environmental, which is well recognised. I will quote from it so that there is no risk of misunderstanding. It refers to best practice in regard to a pipe – we are making the assumption that it is one of the two siphons. Uisce Éireann had a chance to clarify that, but did not do so. I want to pay tribute to An Taisce, which has done tremendous work to get these reports. The McBreen Environmental report states that best practice suggests this pipe is at risk of collapse at any time and urgent consideration should be given to repairs to avoid total failure.

Regarding the Bearna pumping station, Uisce Éireann is telling the Minister of State it is no longer tankering and that it only tankered for a little while. It is still tankering, but now with sludge. It has been pointed out to me that Uisce Éireann does not have permission to do that. It is not fitting in with the sludge plan and none of this has been reported to the EPA.

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