Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

I would like to thank Senator Keaveney for raising this important issue. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government regrets that he is unable to be here in person due to another commitment. He has asked me to respond to the motion on his behalf.

Group sewerage schemes, though much less numerous than group water schemes, have provided communities with the opportunity of connecting to public sewerage networks through communal sewage collection systems that are, in turn, connected to local authority sewers. There is a continuing interest in forming new group sewerage schemes. This interest comes mainly from clusters of houses currently dependent on septic tanks and situated close to towns or villages with public sewerage services. In some cases, difficulties with the disposal of septic tank effluent are being experienced by septic tank owners, particularly in sensitive areas or where there are poor ground conditions.

Small village communities have also expressed interest in setting up group sewerage schemes where there are no public sewerage services available. However, few, if any, village sewerage systems have been provided through group sewerage schemes, mainly due to difficulties associated with the location, siting, ownership and management of communal wastewater treatment systems. Operating and maintaining wastewater treatment infrastructure is intrinsically more problematic than water treatment. Operational failure could result in serious public health or environmental consequences and there is the ongoing issue of disposing of treated effluent and the sludge from the treatment process.

The current grant available to householders under the group sewerage programme is €2,031.58 per house, or 75% of cost, whichever is the lesser. The corresponding grant for group water schemes is €6,475.66. There is, however, positive news. The Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government is at present funding a pilot wastewater collection and treatment project for rural villages, which was proposed by the national rural water monitoring committee, to test a range of new, small-scale wastewater collection and treatment systems under Irish conditions. The objective of the pilot programme is to explore new, cost effective ways of collecting wastewater from houses in rural communities and to evaluate new approaches to meeting their wastewater treatment needs.

This pilot project has pioneered the use of septic tank effluent drainage systems, commonly referred to as STEDS. Under this approach, existing septic tanks are retained on-site with the effluent being collected through a special filter to be drained via a small diameter pipe to a small package treatment system. It is hoped that this alternative collection and treatment system will prove appropriate for use in small rural communities with low population density and site specific environmental conditions such as shallow bedrock, high ground-water conditions and limited effluent discharge locations.

Construction work on the pilot projects is now complete and they are undergoing commissioning. Monitoring of the performance of the new infrastructure has commenced and some preliminary results will be available to the national rural water monitoring committee shortly. The lessons learned with regard to the technologies and costs associated with both the treatment and collection element of the pilot programme will inform policy and determine the potential role for group sewerage schemes in the provision of wastewater collection systems.

The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has asked the national rural water monitoring committee to report to him on the results from the pilot projects, including its recommendations on the future role of the group sewerage schemes in the provision of wastewater collection systems, as soon as possible. The Minister is committed to reviewing the level of grant aid for group sewerage schemes when this report and the recommendations of the national rural water monitoring committee become available and this will happen in the short rather than the long-term. I will also advise the Minister of the discussions here as part of the review process.