Ryan O'Meara (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Housing is the single greatest issue facing my generation. I acknowledge that the delivery of housing units, particularly at scale, is the number one priority for this Government and rightly so. However, one of the biggest barriers to housing and the building of houses in north Tipperary and north-west Kilkenny is a lack of capacity in the water and wastewater infrastructure. In Cloughjordan, my own village, we cannot build a single house because there has been no capacity in the system for years. In Ballycommon, over the road from me, 32 houses could be built in the village but there is no capacity in the system to allow that to happen. Uisce Éireann must be willing to meet developers on site in areas like Ballycommon so that they can work collaboratively on planning permission and getting houses built as a matter of urgency. In areas such as Cloughjordan we need to see a determined and ambitious investment campaign from Uisce Éireann in infrastructure, with the full force of the State behind it, to ensure that work is undertaken in record pace if we are really to tackle the housing crisis. It is one thing putting in the investment, and we are all calling for that, but we need action urgently and we need the State to intervene.

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