Jack Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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Question 247: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government if his Department has had an application for funding under any of the grant systems within his remit for the provision of a sewerage scheme (details supplied) in County Kildare; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22172/06]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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My Department has not received proposals from Kildare County Council in relation to a sewerage scheme at the location mentioned. Neither was such a proposal included in the list of schemes submitted by the Council in November 2003 in response to my Department's request to all local authorities to undertake assessments of the needs for capital works in their area and to prioritise their proposals on the basis of the assessments. The priority lists were taken into account in the framing of subsequent phases of the Water Services Investment Programme published in 2004 and 2005.

Local authorities have recently been asked by my Department to carry out new needs assessments for their areas and to submit the results to the Departments by 31 July 2006. This will afford Kildare County Council an opportunity to review its water and wastewater infrastructural priorities, including those for the location in question. The priorities emerging from the new assessments will inform future phases of the Water Services Investment Programme.

It is also open to Kildare County Council itself to undertake small public water and sewerage schemes under the devolved Rural Water Programme for which I have allocated the Council €2.327 million in 2006.