Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

238. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the estimated completion date of the national plan for septic tanks based on the current rate of inspection. [6890/17]

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

The Water Services (Amendment) Act 2012 assigns responsibility to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to make a National Inspection Plan (NIP) for domestic wastewater treatment systems and neither I, nor my Department, has any direct role in monitoring the implementation of the plan by the local authorities.

The EPA was the supervisory body for the purposes of the National Inspection Plan 2013: Domestic Waste Water Treatment Systems, which was adopted and published by the EPA in February 2013. The EPA has conducted a review of the implementation of the Plan for the period from 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2014. The report contains a breakdown by county of inspections that have taken place and includes details relating to non-compliant treatment systems and advisory notices.  It is available on the Agency’s website at the following link:

www.epa.ie/pubs/reports/water/wastewater/Report%20National%20Inspection%20Plan%20Web.pdf. A further NIP Inspection Data Report 1st July 2013 - 31st December 2014provided an update to the previous review and included data from inspections carried out in the period 1st July 2013 to 31st December 2014.  This is available at: www.epa.ie/water/wastewater/nip/nip2013inspectiondatareport/.

The National Inspection Plan 2015 to 2017: Domestic Waste Water Treatment Systemswas adopted and published by the EPA in 2015. The Plan provides for a minimum of 1,000 inspections to be carried out by the water services authorities (which are the 31 county, city, and county and city councils) on an annual basis up to December 2017. Details of the minimum number of inspections to be carried out in each county are included in the Plan. This plan is also available on the Agency’s website at: www.epa.ie/pubs/reports/water/wastewater/nationalinspectionplan2015-2017.html.