Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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150. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government when he will allocate funding to a group sewage scheme (details supplied) in County Leitrim; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12247/17]

Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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151. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government when he will allocate funding to a group sewage scheme (details supplied) in County Leitrim; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12248/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 150 and 151 together.

My Department’s new Multi-annual Rural Water Programme 2016-2018 includes funding of groups sewerage schemes, through Measure 4(d), where clustering of households on individual septic tanks is not a viable option, particularly from an environmental perspective.

Local authorities were invited in January 2016 to submit bids under the programme. The invitation envisaged no more than two demonstration group sewerage projects being brought forward under the measure in any one year of the three year programme. The demonstrations will allow my Department, over the course of the programme, to determine the appropriate enduring funding levels and relationship with the current grant scheme. Proposed Group Sewerage Schemes for both Fawn and Cloonturk were included by Leitrim County Council in its bids under the measure. In total, 83 Bids were received from 17 Local Authorities requesting funding under this measure.

An Expert Panel was convened by my Department to examine the 2016 bids from local authorities for projects under a number of the programme’s measures, including Measure 4(d), and to make recommendations to the Department on funding. The Panel recommended a priority list of demonstration schemes under this measure to my Department which accepted the recommendations in full when approving the rural water allocations for 2016. The priority list recommended by the Panel did not include the proposed Fawn and Cloonturk schemes.

As only two demonstration projects can be advanced in any given year and a priority list of new demonstration group sewerage schemes has already been identified for the duration of the programme, there is currently no scope for any additional schemes.

A copy of the Expert Panel's report and consideration of all proposals under the Programme is available on my Department’s website at the following link:

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