Uisce Éireann Infrastructure Delivery, Accountability and Repair Timelines: Motion [Private Members] Dail Éireann — 2026-01-14 ============================================================ Rory Hearne (SD), Dublin North-West I thank Independent Ireland for bringing forward the motion. Tá a lán rudaí sa tairiscint that I am go maith with and I think are good. It is important to highlight the issues that have been raised. I am not in agreement with a number of points towards the end of the motion, but broadly it is important. The fundamental questions we need to address are why Uisce Éireann is not working for people, why it is not providing the services and infrastructure that are needed to ensure housing is being delivered and, fundamentally, why it is not sufficiently addressing issues of leakage and poor water quality we know exist in respect of drinking water. People are still living with this issue across the country. There is also the question of the quality of water in our rivers and seas in respect of wastewater. As someone who swims regularly in Dublin Bay, even at the moment when it is freezing, after it rains we can see it is covered in scum. We know there are issues with capacity in the Ringsend treatment plant. We have capacity problems across the country in terms of the delivery of water and wastewater services and, fundamentally, housing. I do not believe that the Government fully takes on board the extent of the housing emergency we are in. I encourage the Minister of State to look at the website onemillionhomes.ie. I do not know whether he has come across it yet. Its information is based on CSO data. It states that there are 1.3 million people aged between 18 and 44 who are waiting to own their home but are instead stuck renting or living at home. The analysis on the website points out that people would be waiting a thousand years in Ballymun, in my constituency, to get keys to a home. In other places around the country, such as Ballyjamesduff in County Cavan, people will wait a hundred years to get the keys to their own home, as will people in Swinford, County Mayo. The website goes through town after town and place after place across the country where there is a generation aged between 18 and 44 who have no prospect of owning a home of their own, renting or living in a social home under the current housing delivery. The reality is that there have been eight months of consecutive decline in construction in the residential sector. This does not involve just the Minister and Minister of State. They are the current Ministers, but the seeds of this problem were laid decades ago. Over the past 20 to 40 years, we have followed a housing policy, and a policy more generally, of privatisation, relying on the market and not delivering and developing public capacity. It is incredible that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil say they are giving Uisce Éireann the funding it needs given that they denied it when it was actually needed and the work could have been done and investment provided. We are playing catch-up in terms of the infrastructure that is needed. Last year, we said Uisce Éireann needed €2 billion to get going. The Minister, Deputy Harris, said the Government was not sure and needed agreements, and the decision was delayed. I read the infrastructure report. One of the things identified in it, in terms of delays in delivery, did not involve planning, judicial reviews or other issues but, rather, the Government and State and the way they operate. The barriers are a lack of dedicated funding, which is still insufficient, and the systems in place to approve projects. The Minister of State is shaking his head. I assume he has read the infrastructure report. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-14/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:30+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-14