Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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736. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government whether his Department plans to designate hundreds of rivers, lakes and estuaries as 'heavily modified water bodies'; if this means the Department no longer intends to improve the water quality and environmental health standards of these sites and is essentially giving up on them; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30751/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The Water Action Plan 2024 published by my Department sets out a roadmap to restore Ireland’s water bodies to ‘good status’ or better and to protect water from any further deterioration.

In some instances, water bodies have been physically modified in the past to serve a beneficial specified use to society such as; a drinking water abstraction, a hydroelectric scheme, a flood protection scheme or a drainage scheme aimed at improving agricultural production. In the process of modifying a water body, the natural flow, form or function (hydromorphology) have been altered to the extent that it has impacted the natural aquatic ecology of the water body. In such cases, the water bodies may be designated as Heavily Modified Water Bodies (HMWBs), as provided for under Article 4(3) of the Water Framework Directive (WFD - 2000/60/EC).

Action 3.10 of the Water Action Plan 2024 explicitly states:

“The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage will undertake a short public consultation before deciding whether to designate or de-designate water bodies as HMWBs. There were 466 water bodies, which the EPA has found to meet the criteria for designation. The Minister will take into account the recommendations of the EPA and the key concerns raised in the submissions to the consultation process.”

During the first cycle of the WFD (2010-2015) a relatively low number (33) of water bodies were designated as HMWBs. The advent of new assessment tools in the intervening period has increased our knowledge of the hydromorphological modifications of Ireland’s water bodies. As a result of this increased knowledge, the technical assessment undertaken in 2022 resulted in the current proposed list of 466 water bodies for designation as HMWBs. My Department have accepted this robust scientific assessment and is proposing that the list of 466 water bodies be designated as HMWBs due to their modifications.

Building on the previous consultation with the specified use owners undertaken in 2022 my Department requested specified use owners to provide further information on the proposed HMWBs that relate to the specified uses within their remit. This additional information was used to inform the designation steps.

The Office of Public Works supplied my Department with detailed individual reports on 34 arterial drainage schemes and 16 flood relief schemes. Uisce Éireann in turn supplied detailed individual reports on 15 relevant drinking water supplies. These reports provided the basis for the decisions made by my Department, the outcomes of which are supplied in the Appendix to the consultation.

The environmental objective for HMWBs is not a lower standard, it is a more realistic target, accounting for the modifications necessary to provide the societal benefit of their specified use, e.g. provision of drinking water or prevention of flooding. This facilitates a further assessment of each water body so that it can achieve the best environmental outcome possible. This is known as Good Ecological Potential and is used as an alternative to Good Ecological Status.

In addition, official EU guidance on the subject of designating HWMBs () confirmed the following;

“Designation of HMWB is not a type of exemption. HMWB are a specific water body category with their own classification scheme and objective, namely good ecological potential (GEP)...”

Please be assured that it is not the intention of my Department, in any way, to give up on improving the water quality standards of these water bodies. The designation of water bodies as HMWBs will, however, provide certainty regarding the environmental objectives under the Water Framework Directive to be applied to those water bodies for management and regulatory purposes.

It is important to note that this is an iterative process; HMWB designation is revisited in each river basin management planning cycle (every 6 years). HMWBs have the potential to be de-designated in future planning cycles, where additional knowledge may inform possible alternative solutions to providing continued societal benefits.