Water: Statements
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-21
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Darren O'Rourke (SF), Meath East

I welcome the opportunity to speak today. Priority or urgent areas of focus for me include the need for new water mains in Dunboyne and Duleek but with the limited time available to me, I will restrict my comments to the urgent need for investment in surface water and wastewater infrastructure in Kells, County Meath. These issues are long identified but the responsible authorities from top to bottom and bottom to top have failed to address them. As confirmed to my council colleague, Councillor Michael Gallagher, at a recent council meeting, specific local failures during storms include the culvert in Riverside estate, the pipe crossing on the R147 at the local graveyard, the gully on the R164 Athboy road and those in the back lanes at Headfort Grove. These are not isolated problems but symptoms of a failing decades-old infrastructure. While the promised remedial works at these four locations are urgently needed, they are only a start. We need a full town audit of the antiquated network in Kells. This is essential for future-proofing the town against increasingly frequent deluges, like today, and for supporting responsible development.
We cannot look at surface water in isolation. The wastewater infrastructure in Kells is also under severe strain, as detailed in the Kells sewerage scheme network upgrade report from January 2020. The report makes clear that approximately 13 km of our existing sewer network requires intervention to meet modern standards. In its recommendation, it recommends decommissioning and removal of the Blackwater flow combined sewer overflow, CSO, and conveyance of flows downstream to the wastewater treatment plant. It calls for significant investment in the wastewater treatment plant itself, including by constructing a new storm tank. There is a number of other significant proposals that have not been actioned six years later. These are not minor projects. We must have a twin track investment strategy that addresses both our surface water and wastewater systems in an integrated way. The solutions are there. What we need is the commitment and funding from the Government to implement them.

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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