Conor Sheehan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Water and the adequate funding of water infrastructure is something we have failed to address. We all know that there are huge issues with water infrastructure. Uisce Éireann needs at least €60 billion over 25 years to repair our water system. This is something we have failed to adequately address. It is crucial, not only for our economic development but also for the basic amenity of being able to swim in open water. I always find it a bit strange that we almost have a tolerance for raw sewage running into our bathing infrastructure. I often swim, for example, at Kilkee Beach in County Clare. It is a fantastic beach, but we often cannot swim there because of raw sewage running into the sea.

In my own city of Limerick, and very near to where I am from, we have the Corbally Baths, which was originally a public outdoor swimming pool. It was such a fantastic amenity. We can look across the water to the UK, if Members will pardon the pun, at the swimming infrastructure there, despite the challenges that they also have with their water infrastructure. Raw sewage has been running from the Shannon into the Corbally Baths for the past 40 or 50 years. The baths had to close. We have had repeated water testing by the local authority but nothing has ever changed. We must get serious about this because we have facilities like that all over the country that could serve as municipal swimming areas. A great campaign was led over the last two years by Feargal Sharkey to highlight the poor quality of the bathing waters all over the UK. We need something like that in this country because there are huge swathes of the country where the waters are unswimmable from time to time, for example, when we have had heavy rainfall. We seem to have an almost blasé semi-tolerance of it.

We must also look at new ways of treating water. I would love the Government to make progress with the installation of anaerobic digestion tanks at water treatment plants around the country. I would also like the Government to come forward with planning exemptions for critical infrastructure such as for water treatment, because we have a significant issue with excessive infiltration of the Shannon when the river is high that affects drinking water and bathing water in Limerick.

Not in my constituency, but in the neighbouring constituency of Limerick County, there are significant issues in towns like Newcastlewest. Such towns are essentially being held back by totally inadequate water infrastructure, including in the main area of the Minister's brief, namely, housing. Investment in Irish Water must be aligned on a multi-annual basis with the Government's new housing targets.

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