Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

358. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the reason the water services at an estate (details supplied) in Cork has not been approved under the NTICI measure 2; the criteria which were used for the approvals; the options now available to the residents; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22439/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

€10m has been made available in 2016 to fund a new National Taking in Charge Initiative (NTICI) that will assist local authorities in developing new approaches to addressing housing estates, including those with developer-provided water services infrastructure that, for various reasons, have not been taken in charge to date.

The initiative has been guided by the results of a survey of housing developments not taken in charge that was carried out by my Department in December 2015. This survey showed that, at that point in time, there were 5,655 completed housing developments nationally which were not taken in charge by local authorities. The NTICI funding is being provided to accelerate current applications within the taking-in-charge process submitted to the relevant local authority, relating to around 1,500 applications.

Local authorities were invited to submit proposals under the NTICI in respect of three measures, namely:

- Measure 1: Housing Estates not containing Developer Provided Water Services.

- Measure 2: Housing Estates served by Developer Provided Infrastructure.

- Measure 3: Technical Assistance Funding.

Under Measure 2, local authorities were invited to submit proposals, based on an indicative allocation of €3.5m proposed to be made available to seven local authorities (Cork County, Clare, Donegal, Galway County, Kerry, Tipperary and Wexford County Councils) for demonstration projects relating to housing estates served by Developer Provided Infrastructure (DPI), based on an earlier pilot study, although consideration may also be given to other counties within the indicative funding available. While the estate in question is included in the survey of completed housing developments nationally not taken in charge by local authorities, it was not included among proposals seeking funding under the NTICI by Cork County Council.

Consideration of the submissions put forward by the local authorities is on the basis of the provisional funding levels available and weighted towards those local authorities that demonstrate a high level of collaborative problem-solving and leveraging of complementary funding from developer, bond provider, receiver or other sources. Proposals under the NTICI from the local authorities were evaluated by a Steering Group, composed of representatives from my Department, Irish Water and the EPA, who considered the eligibility and selection criteria under the foregoing three measures.

On 8 July 2015, I announced the allocation of €9 million to assist local authorities in taking in charge 356 developments (accounting for over 17,000 households). In addition to the €9m allocation, almost €4.5m of funding will be sourced by local authorities through bonds and other sources.

The experience gained through the initiative in 2016 and associated demonstration projects is intended to establish a co-ordinated taking-in-charge programme to progressively address the issue on a multi-annual basis, in the light of available local authority, Irish Water, bond and other funding sources and the general Government financial position.