Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Power and water are the two biggest infrastructural issues in my area and in rural parts of constituencies. The impact of the recent storms on our power infrastructure has been absolutely devastating. It has exposed the serious vulnerability that is there. However, I will mainly focus on the water issue and Uisce Éireann.

In rural south Donegal, there are very serious problems with the water. There is lime in the water and problems with connectivity. The pipes are ancient. Building cannot be carried out in large parts of rural areas because the proper infrastructure is not in place. Moving to Sligo, there are parts of Sligo town where there is capacity in the sewerage and water systems but the pipework is not there for areas mapped out for development in the county development plan. The situation is similar in many other towns across Sligo. In Leitrim, it is a similar situation. There are many towns in Leitrim, such as Mohill, Carrigallen and Drumshanbo, where a person who wanted to build 100 houses, which is a small number of houses, would not get planning permission because the sewerage system would not be adequate. We need substantial upgrades to those sewerage systems to ensure that could be done. Many of those towns received upgrades in the early 2000s but they were very small and inadequate and the future was not planned for. That is one of the problems we have. When a job is being done, it is done to meet the demands of today with only a very short-sighted look to the future. We need to build for a larger future, particularly in those areas where we can get this capacity built up.

In many of our rural areas, particularly in County Leitrim, there are serious problems with planning permission. In many parishes, there is no town so there is nowhere else for people to go if they cannot build a one-off house in that rural area but they cannot get planning permission because of the restrictions in place as a result of EPA guidelines. All of these things need to be examined. Ultimately, we need to put money into Irish Water to develop the kind of infrastructure we need to ensure rural communities can continue to develop and grow. Many of them are now being depopulated because you simply cannot build houses in them.

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