Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this matter, which I submitted last week on publication of the Environmental Protection Agency report. I appreciate having the opportunity to address it today.

I thank the Minister of State for coming before us today. However, I must express my disappointment that the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, is not available.

That said, I will start by referring to the report of the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, which has generated a number of headlines such as "EPA says decade of action needed on environment" or one from today - I thank the newspapers for covering this issue - "Bad air day: pollution in Dublin reaches levels of smoky coal era 30 years ago". According to the EPA, up to 1,300 premature deaths are caused by pollution in the Republic of Ireland each year.

I wish to focus on the aspects of Irish Water and our local authorities, which explains why this issue is being put to the Department for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. The outlook for Ireland's environment is not optimistic unless the implementation of solutions across all sectors of society is accelerated, as stated by EPA director general, Laura Burke, who, in a recent contribution to RTÉ's "Morning Ireland" programme, stated that national vision and a decade of action was needed to put things right. She went on to state that there is an issue with compliance and although Ireland is good at signing up to directives, the aspiration does not really meet the reality. She stated "We need to speed up, we need to scale up, and we actually need to deliver."

Our watercourses and seas are polluted to our collective detriment and, indeed, to the detriment of our health. Fifty years or more of the failure of this State to invest appropriately in water supply and waste management treatment has resulted in overflows in dozens of locations, including at the country's largest plant at Ringsend. Back in 2019, the Minister of State will probably recall the scenes of booms being placed around certain places in Dublin Harbour, and subsequent to that, beaches like the one at Sandymount were black-flagged, and swimming is now prohibited there as a result. The event generated headlines like "Ringsend treatment plant will continue to fail treatment standards" or that the EPA warns plume will continue near Ringsend wastewater plant until upgrade works are completed. A constituent of mine commented online:

Plans to build another wastewater plant around Dublin have been mired in the usual nimbyism. Until politicians grow up and are responsible to all citizens, it will remain the same.

I completely agree with those sentiments.

The comprehensive EPA report, which was published last week, examines a wide range of impacts on the environment and highlights that there are severe issues in respect of the quality of water in Irish rivers, lakes, estuaries and near-coastal waters. In short, water quality in Ireland has declined and this is being driven by three factors, namely, agricultural and physical changes led by development and how we treat our waste water. Nearly half of all of Ireland's surface water bodies are not meeting quality goals set by EU directives and climate change is driving temperature change and is increasing the amount of water flowing through these bodies of water, which is exacerbating pollution in our water and is critically endangering our biodiversity. Raw sewage is being discharged to waters from 35 towns and villages up and down the country and we only have 20 pristine river waters left, compared with more than 500 in the 1980s, which is not too long ago.

I think this underscores the importance of developing modern and effective drainage and wastewater treatment systems that will address these issues. The plan for a plant, for instance, in Clonshaugh, not too far from my constituency, has been delayed due to the failure to consult with the EPA. This is an example of the problems that exist within our system that the Minister of State should address.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue and providing an opportunity to comment on the EPA's latest report, "Ireland's Environment 2020". This important statement on the condition of our national environment brings together key data and assessment from right across the spectrum of the EPA's work.

This report includes an assessment of the water quality of our rivers, lakes, canals, groundwaters, estuaries and coastal waters. The EPA sets out in stark terms the present and future challenges we face as a country and as a society. Yet, it also points the way forward with practical and positive, albeit not painless, actions that must now be taken to address these issues. The EPA report is especially significant now and will give practical orientation to the opportunities presented by major new policy initiatives and a new programme for Government with strong commitments on climate, water and biodiversity.

If we are to meet the challenge highlighted in the report, it is now important that we achieve cross-sectoral and broad societal agreement for the necessary actions that the EPA says will protect and improve our water quality. We will be able to reverse the trends of recent years but to do so, we will need to coordinate our collective effort across a range of sectors. Foremost among these many efforts will be a continued substantial investment to improve waste water treatment and a renewed resolve to reduce nutrients lost from agricultural land. Many of the actions now needed to protect and improve water quality will also provide helpful co-benefits in climate change mitigation and in the enrichment of Ireland's biodiversity.

The Government, like the EPA, is eager to see faster progress and consequently has put a priority on funding Irish Water's capital investment programme. In budget 2021, a significant sum of €1.4 billion was announced for investment in water services. In response to the EPA's call for action, we will continue to build new and upgraded services including urban waste water treatment plants and collection systems, which will eliminate raw sewage discharges and improve treatment. This will be achieved by funding Irish Water's water services capital investment plan to deliver the full €8.5 billion funding package committed to in Project Ireland 2040. We will expand environmental programmes, including the agricultural sustainability support and advisory programme, ASSAP, to work locally with communities, farmers, farm advisers and the food industry, to improve nutrient management on farms to reduce nutrients lost to water. We will continue to improve the protection of our pristine waters learning from initiatives such as the Blue Dots programme and the EU LIFE Waters of Life project, and we will launch a new revised and strengthened river basin management plan in 2022, drawing on a collaborative approach between all stakeholders. With these actions, I look forward to co-operating across the Government, with key stakeholders and with the public on these complex and interrelated issues.

Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for his response. Previous EPA reports have drawn attention to this issue and while I appreciate the statement the Minister of State has made to the House, I point out there are plans that predate Irish Water in respect of treating and catering for the expansion of our cities, particularly here in Dublin, that are pushing up daisies. For example, the greater Dublin strategic drainage study, GDSDS, report has been around for over a decade and yet it has not been implemented because of politicians and communities standing in the way of critical environmental infrastructure, and I really do mean that, because some of it is happening in my own constituency. I am certainly not raising this issue to garner votes; I am raising it because I believe that it is right to do so and because there are beaches and rivers in this city that cannot be used because of the presence of effluent in our watercourses. It is essential that urgent action is taken - indeed, a decade's worth of action needs to be taken, as the EPA has highlighted.

Irish Water needs certainty regarding its funding and while I appreciate the comments the Minister of State has made in respect of the budget, our citizens also require certainty regarding the political nerve to deliver on this critical infrastructure. We need to end political chicanery around questions of what infrastructure goes where and the reasons behind those campaigns, which invariably are due to a lack of information in the public domain or worse, misinformation, that is sometimes perpetuated by politicians. We have a responsibility to ensure that when these projects are launched, put up on websites, discussed in our communities or mentioned by our local media, that we are informed as to what they are, what they will result in and most importantly, what they will not result in.

In conclusion, it is critical that we ensure that Irish Water is actually able to meet the targets that we set for it, not just in respect of the capital plan but in respect of the environmental impact that it has. As the EPA has said, any post-Covid-19 stimulus package should include development that has that climate action focus at the core of what it hopes to achieve.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Alan Farrell again for his comments and for his genuine interest in the issue of improving our water quality, which is a huge issue facing us all as citizens. The report marks a concerning change in direction in our water quality trends and it identifies the need to amplify and co-ordinate efforts across all sectors.

In particular we must increase efforts to address both diffuse pollution sources, such as nutrient losses from agriculture, and point sources, such as wastewater run-off. These are both, by their nature, challenging issues for us to address. I emphasise the Government's commitment to continuing to implement the actions in the River Basin Management Plan for Ireland 2018-2021. The new river basin management plan will build on this work and will put in place further measures to protect and improve water quality in rivers, lakes, groundwater, estuaries and coastal waters. Our wastewater system requires substantial and sustained investment of money to bring it up to the standards expected of a modern service, to provide for population growth and to build resilience in the face of climate change. Through the funding decisions it has already made since coming into office, this Government has shown that it is determined to provide investment to enable Irish Water to meet this huge task over the coming years.