Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent)
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235. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the steps that he is taking to address the significant delay issues in terms of house building companies securing engagement and agreement from Irish Water in domestic water supply and wastewater connection agreements which is delaying approved planning developments; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [60116/22]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Since 1 January 2014, Irish Water has statutory responsibility for all aspects of water services planning, delivery and operation at national, regional and local levels in accordance with Section 7 of the Water Services (No. 2) Act 2013. This includes the connection of new houses to the water services network.

Irish Water is committed to supporting the delivery of housing including the Government’s housing plan to 2030 ‘Housing for All - a New Housing Plan for Ireland’. To demonstrate Irish Water’s role in supporting housing and Housing for All, they provide a quarterly update to my Department containing key information on how Irish Water is supporting the housing plan by providing water services to new homes, key public services and businesses.

At the end of Q3 2022, Irish Water responded to 91% of pre-connection enquiries and issued 81% of connection offers within 16 weeks

In the first nine months of 2022, Irish Water issued positive responses to 2,383 enquiries associated with 92,298 housing units and issued 3,621 connection offers associated with 27,534 housing units. Customers have accepted 2,759 offers associated with 21,469 housing units. Irish Water completed 2,744 connections to water infrastructure associated with 15,595 housing units.

In addition, Irish Water launched a Self-Lay Accreditation Scheme in June 2022 whereby developers can deliver water and wastewater infrastructure in the public roads to service new housing developments. The scheme facilitates the delivery of water service infrastructure to support housing delivery. It does this by recognising best practice standards for the Self-Lay in the public road of water services infrastructure by Developers and Contractors.

The Scheme will assist Developers and Contractors in their delivery of housing while protecting water and wastewater infrastructure to ensure a safe and reliable water services is provided to customers into the future.

Irish Water has established a dedicated team to deal with representations and queries from public representatives. The team can be contacted directly via email to oireachtasmembers@water.ie or by telephone on a dedicated number, 0818 578 578.