Gareth Scahill (Fine Gael)

I rise today to seek an update on the provision for funding for the replacement of older water infrastructure in rural Ireland. I welcome the Minister of State to the Chamber once again. I also acknowledge the Uisce Éireann staff on the ground across the country who are doing an exceptional job in often difficult circumstances and with very limited resources. From my experience of alerting the local teams to leaks and outages across my home county of Roscommon, I have always found them extremely helpful and supportive. I would be doing them and the people of rural Roscommon and rural Ireland a disservice if I did not ask for an update and continue to do so.

First and foremost, I welcome the significant progress on Irish Water services in the past decade. Capital investment in water services has increased from €300 million in 2014 to €1.3 billion in 2024 but there is significant work that needs to be done. I note national leakage has reduced from 46% in 2018 to 37% at present and the target is 25% in leakage rates, saving 200 million litres of water by 2030. After four months as a county councillor, I raised in the chamber of Roscommon County Council the need for the infrastructure in an area from Cloonfad to Garranlahan to be looked at. We called on Irish Water to specifically look at this particular area. It related to the infrastructural network of the organisation. A letter was sent on 12 December 2024, which was proposed by me and seconded by my former colleague, Councillor Paschal Fitzmaurice in Roscommon. Following that, at the beginning of this month, Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice from my constituency raised the issue of Cloonfad, a small village in County Roscommon. On 2 April, he was alerted to the 21st water outage for the village, where a pipe had burst once more. It has been a consistent issue at Lowberry Cross, with the people in that particular area consistently having to put up with water outages.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. For Cloonfad and specifically for Lowberry Cross, we have consistently tried to put a Band-Aid solution in place where leaks in the pipes have occurred. The same issues happen consistently and repeatedly. I call on the Minister of State to do open heart surgery, so to speak, and replace the actual pipes in the area as opposed to continuing with the Band-Aid solution.

This is just one case. I am sure, with 30% leakage nationwide, that this is replicated in many other rural areas. I would like the Minister of State to address this now so that people living in this area have access to a fundamental requirement, namely, reliable water infrastructure. It is a basic requirement for domestic and business premises, no matter where they are located, but it is also a matter for public health, economic growth and regional equality.

I have numerous examples and headlines from local media over the past four years highlighting the outages that have taken place in Cloonfad and across that particular part of Roscommon. I look forward to the Minister of State's response and thank him for taking this Commencement matter. I know this is not his particular area.