Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Question 204: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the figures his Department has in relation to the amount of water that is available from present sources to supply Dublin's needs; if there has been an analysis carried out by his Department in relation to a potential shortfall in water supply for Dublin with the additional housing and other development that is to occur over the next five years; the figures projected in relation to such shortfall; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26668/07]

John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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Responsibility for ensuring that an adequate water supply is available to, and planned to meet the needs of, consumers in the Dublin area rests primarily with the local authorities in the Dublin region.

The current demand in the Greater Dublin Water Supply Area, which consists of Dublin City, Fingal, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, South Dublin, and parts of Wicklow, Kildare and Meath, is 540 million litres per day. Work is under way on an expansion of the Ballymore Eustace Treatment Plant to provide an additional 44 million litres per day and an expansion of the Leixlip Works to provide an additional 67 million litres per day is in planning.

However, there is limited potential to abstract additional water from existing sources to service growth in demand in the Greater Dublin Area and it is necessary to consider new options for potential long-term sources. My Department provided €2.55m under the Water Services Investment Programme to Dublin City Council to fund a study of longer term water supply needs and options to meet the needs of the greater Dublin area. This study, which was completed in 2006, estimated that the region will require an extra 300 million litres of water per day from a new source by 2031. It also concluded that only two options, taking water from the Shannon or the provision of a sea-water desalination facility in the region, could meet the capacity requirements in the medium and long term.

Consultants engaged by Dublin City Council are preparing a Preliminary Report, which will outline the options for source development, the type of treatment to be provided and how the water should be delivered/distributed, and make recommendations on the optimum solutions. Both the Shannon and desalination options will be addressed in this Preliminary Report.