Water: Statements
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-21
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James Browne (FF), Wexford

I welcome the opportunity to speak about water. Water is a precious resource. It is critical to our health, our environment and our economy. Access to safe and clean drinking water for everyone is a top priority for the Government. We know it is essential.
The Government's water policies are centred on what is called the EU water framework directive. This directive requires all member states to protect and to improve water quality in our rivers, lakes, groundwater and transitional coastal waters. This is done through river basin management plans and water action plans, which my colleague the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, will address in further detail.
A secure, safe and reliable water service and supply and the provision of quality wastewater treatment are a priority. Crucially, this also facilitates the development of homes in all parts of our country. As Minister for housing, I believe that the delivery of quality water must be hand in glove with the acceleration in our delivery of homes across all tenures and all parts of this country, from our islands to our villages, and from our provincial towns to our cities.
I want to speak about water service delivery. It plays an essential role in enabling economic growth, social inclusion, environmental sustainability and the delivery of our housing need. Uisce Éireann supplies drinking water to over 80% of the population, with two thirds of households connected to public wastewater services. The Uisce Éireann network consists of tens of thousands of kilometres of pipelines, along with thousands of treatment plants and pumping stations. Simply keeping our water infrastructure running every day is an enormous task.
The process of establishing Uisce Éireann as a stand-alone public utility continues to be a work in progress. There is no doubt about that. It is only at the end of this year that the link with local authorities will finally be broken, and that has been necessary, even if it has taken time. The motivation for a stand-alone utility stems from the inherent inefficiencies of the fragmented network that was operated by 31 local authorities. It has been stated and acknowledged many times in this House that a legacy of underinvestment in our water infrastructure by the local authorities means there are many challenges that Uisce Éireann is now seeking to address.
Uisce Éireann is also providing for significantly increased capacity for future business and population growth. We all see the evidence of the challenges in our constituencies linked to creaking infrastructure or the demands of growth. The scale of the remedial work on the vast network is extensive and will take years to fully resolve.
That is why the Government has committed unprecedented funding to Uisce Éireann as part of the national development plan. This investment in our water services will cover every part of our water infrastructure and every community, from the smallest to the largest, both urban and rural. All Exchequer investment needs to occur in a timely and efficient manner with proper evaluation to ensure value for money. In this regard Uisce Éireann is subject to rigorous financial scrutiny by way of dual audit from the Comptroller and Auditor General and by a commercial auditor along with being accountable to the Committee of Public Accounts. Uisce Éireann is also subject to economic regulation by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities. The CRU provides a constraint over Uisce Éireann revenue, approving investment plans while monitoring performance and ensuring it runs efficiently. The economic regulatory process involves extensive public consultation on Uisce Éireann funding, investment plans and performance. In fact, the CRU has an open public consultation on Uisce Éireann's plans for 2025 to 2029, which is due to close on Tuesday, 27 January. I encourage a broad base of the public to engage with this consultation call. The CRU also has a role in protecting domestic and non-domestic customers by approving service standards, handling complaints and dispute resolution for customer complaints that cannot be resolved with Uisce Éireann.
Uisce Éireann communicates with a diverse and large group of customers, communities and stakeholders through multiple channels daily. These include online, digital and social media channels along with a free text alert service providing water supply updates and information to customers across 1.6 million households and businesses. Uisce Éireann has been proactive in establishing a local authority liaison office, which meets with councils across the country. This provides a dedicated service for elected representatives and deals with tens of thousands of queries each year from all elected representatives, including Members of the Oireachtas. I certainly want to see this improved as we go forward.
Transformation is ongoing. It is important to remind ourselves that Uisce Éireann and the public water sector are still going through a significant transformation process. This year is a pivotal one as the transfer deadline for local water services staff fast approaches. Next year will see Uisce Éireann reach its end-state structure and settle into being Ireland's single public water utility. However, and as we heard in the House last week, there are concerns around the effectiveness of the communication from Uisce Éireann to elected representatives. This is something I have directly spoken to the chairperson of the Uisce Éireann board about. I am assured the organisation recognises that work needs to be done to improve this. Therefore, I have asked Uisce Éireann to review its approach to communications and engagement, in particular with Members of this House, as a matter of priority.
In terms of national development plan, NDP, funding, Uisce Éireann has allocated €1.7 billion for a new additional growth programme that will support accelerated housing delivery. Uisce Éireann has identified 72 strategic settlements through reviews of the national planning framework; regional spatial and economic strategies; and county development plans and local area plans. These include Ireland's key towns, regional growth centres and cities, in addition to other large towns with considerable forecasted housing growth. My Department has engaged with Uisce Éireann, and Uisce Éireann will shortly write to the CEOs of Ireland's 31 local authorities, outlining its plans to support new housing delivery and achieve the national housing target of 300,000 new homes by 2030. This is part of Uisce Éireann's aim of sharing as much detail as possible with local authorities and local planning authorities to inform local planning decisions over the coming years.
In addition to this accelerated growth programme, Uisce Éireann is embarking on some of the largest infrastructure projects ever undertaken in Ireland to meet our future growth and societal needs. The water supply project for the eastern and midlands region is a generational project and will be one of the largest ever undertaken in the history of the State. It will deliver a safe, secure, sustainable source of water supply to the eastern and midlands region. It will achieve this by bringing treated water from the Parteen Basin in County Tipperary to Peamount in Dublin. The pipeline will have the capacity for offtakes along the route in counties Tipperary, Offaly and Westmeath. It will also enable supplies serving Dublin to be redirected back locally in counties Carlow, Wicklow, Meath and Louth, bringing benefits to the Dublin region and the wider eastern and midlands region. The delivery of this generational project is critical to sustainable economic growth, enabling housing delivery and attracting investment to support Ireland's growing population for the next 30 years and beyond.
In tandem with the water supply project, the greater Dublin drainage project, GDD, is critical to facilitate growth in the greater Dublin area. The new wastewater treatment plant will be situated in the southern fringes of Fingal, immediately outside the M50 motorway in County Dublin, and will serve north Dublin and parts of the surrounding counties of Kildare and Meath. The GDD will provide the additional treatment and network capacity to support the long-term sustainable growth of the greater Dublin region and ensure that Ireland continues to meet our objectives under European law.
Just yesterday the Government approved in principle a major upgrade for the wastewater treatment plant at Bunlicky, serving Limerick city. This major project represents a major investment in the mid-west and is just one of many that Uisce Éireann will progress this year. Macroom, Ballyconneely, Claremorrris and Clonmel, among others, will also see major upgrades to their water infrastructure this year, with more such projects to come over the lifetime of the NDP. These projects will benefit all our communities, both urban and rural.
Rural communities that are not served by Uisce Éireann also depend on safe and reliable water and wastewater services, and this Government is committed to sustaining these services for the future. My Department, through the rural water programme, supports these households and communities by ensuring access to safe, reliable and sustainable drinking water and wastewater services in rural areas. Around 180,000 households are supplied through group water schemes, while many other rural homes rely on private wells and on-site wastewater systems, predominately septic tanks. These households and communities are a central focus of Government investment and policy. Under the NDP, €230 million is being invested in rural water services out to 2030 through a comprehensive package of supports. This includes significant capital investment in group water schemes and local water infrastructure, operational funding for schemes, targeted household grants, and support for the National Federation of Group Water Schemes to strengthen governance and capacity. I have already approved funding for hundreds of rural water projects across the country. These range from large-scale treatment upgrades serving entire communities to smaller, but vital, works that improve water quality, security of supply and environmental compliance at local level. These investments are delivering safer, more reliable water services and greater resilience for rural communities. They also demonstrate the Government's strong and ongoing commitment to supporting rural households and improving rural water services.
The developer-led infrastructure initiative, which was approved by the Government in late 2025, represents a further important step. It provides a new approach to supporting new housing delivery in areas not served by Uisce Éireann by increasing private sector involvement in appropriate wastewater solutions. Uisce Éireann, as the national water supplier, is now in a position to engage with developers on this initiative, and I expect it to be rolled out in locations across the country during 2026.
This approach will support the delivery of new housing in rural areas while ensuring that environmental and public health standards are maintained. It will deliver tangible benefits for rural communities. The Government is committed to making sure that all areas of water policy and water services are strengthened with regard to environmental compliance and water and wastewater infrastructure, so that all our communities feel the benefits of the unprecedented NDP investment in the water sector.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-31T01:00:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-21