Water: Statements
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-21
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Martin Kenny (SF), Sligo-Leitrim

It is a public company and, therefore, it has a public responsibility to answer public representatives and it does not do that. The Minister cannot also abdicate his responsibilities around that. That is the first point I want to make, and I hope the Minister hears that point very clearly. We will no longer accept this notion that the Minister - water and local government are covered in his brief - is not going answer questions around Uisce Éireann. Please, make sure that that practice ends in his Department and Ministry.
The issues have been well aired regarding various problems in different parts of country. They are no different in my area. They are no different, particularly in parts of County Leitrim, where there are towns where the wastewater system is at maximum capacity already. Even if planning permission is given to build 50 houses in places like Mohill, Drumshanbo or other towns, they cannot get a letter from Uisce Éireann saying that they can go ahead with that because the capacity is not there to do it. That is the same in an awful lot of areas. At the moment, for the whole of south Leitrim, water that is treated comes from the River Shannon, outside of Carrick-on-Shannon. There is a big treatment facility there. That treatment facility is at 120% capacity. It is producing more water than it was designed to produce. If there is a burst or problem, we all have a serious issue.
That brings me to the example I have written to the Minister about and he has kicked back the letter saying to talk to Uisce Éireann regarding it. There is a group scheme in an area outside of Drumshanbo, which is up on the mountain. This group scheme takes its water from a set of spring wells in the mountains. There are thousands of acres. It is a clear open mountain. The water is of the highest quality. Naturally, to meet the requirements, it has to get a small level of treatment. It applied to Uisce Éireann to get the grants to upgrade its treatment facilities. It will not give them the grants. It says, "No. We want to take over your supply." It wants to take it in charge. That is fine. However, when it talked about taking it in charge, it said that if takes it in charge, it will no longer use that water. It will pump the water from Carrick-on-Shannon up the top of the mountain, even though at the moment it cannot supply enough of it for everywhere else. This particular group scheme has not got one pump because all houses on it are kilometres below and with gravity it flows to everybody. The running costs of it are negligible. Yet, Uisce Éireann refuses to give the scheme the small grant its needs to provide the practices that need to be in place to keep the water clean.
There is a big problem here. The problem is that nobody wants to think outside of the box. When you create Uisce Éireann or projects like that, it simply closes down everything and no project can go ahead because it has to have its rules and regulations in place. I ask the Minister to keep those points in mind.

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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