Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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36. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the status of the water abstraction licensing regime legislation as required by the water framework directive. [19785/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Water Framework Directive requires that abstractions of surface water or ground water which are likely to have a significant effect on water status must be regulated. In December 2017, the Government approved the commencement of work on a General Scheme of a Water Environment (Abstractions) Bill which will govern the abstraction of water in a proportionate and efficient way.

I intend to return to Government in the coming weeks with a draft General Scheme of this Bill. A public consultation process will then be launched and the outcome of that consultation will inform the further development of the Bill.

While no decisions will be made on any proposals in this regard until the public consultation is complete, I expect that a proportionate abstraction control regime can be developed that will effectively manage abstraction risks and pressures without imposing an unnecessary regulatory burden. Ireland has relatively low abstraction pressures with 6% of water bodies nationally having had abstraction pressures identified by the Environmental Protection Agency as potentially posing a risk to the bodies' environmental objectives. I expect that any control regime will focus on the most significant abstraction volumes and pressures, recognising that the Directive does not require the registration and licensing of private wells serving individual domestic dwellings.