Water: Statements
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-21
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John Connolly (FF), Galway West

I noted yesterday a substantial announcement on wastewater investment for Limerick. I compliment Limerick, the local authorities there and the Minister in the Department for developing that work. Like Limerick, Galway is a city the national planning framework plans for growth over the coming decade or decade and a half, in terms of counterbalancing the development of the country between the east coast and the west coast. Galway needs a similar commitment on wastewater investment to what was given to Limerick yesterday.
The network in Galway city is in need of significant upgrades. In 2023, the EPA claimed that there were overflows of diluted effluent on 70 dates from a holding tank on the Galway network and that on most of these dates we had less than 10 mm of rain. That is an unlicensed discharge. The EPA said the duration and the quantities of the overflow are not known and they have the potential to pollute Galway Bay. That alone should be reason for us to say we need to intervene here quickly and make sure we do the work on the Galway network to prevent that.
The other reason is that the lack of appropriate wastewater treatment in Galway city is preventing residential development, particularly in the east of the city. In fairness and to its credit, Uisce Éireann did apply for planning permission to upgrade a pumping station in Merlin Park. However, there has been no commitment since the granting of permission for that to develop it. We need to see that commitment.
I should point out that there are two beaches in Galway city where the water sampling has not met the standards to be awarded the blue flag. It is impossible to say that this is a direct consequence of the issues with the network but one can gather this may have something to do with it. Those two reasons, the environmental impact and the inability to develop further in the east of the city, are reasons we should be urging Uisce Éireann, at the earliest opportunity, to proceed with the work on the pumping station at Merlin Park.
I want to briefly address water supply. My predecessor for Galway West, Éamon Ó Cuív, in an era when you could get answers to questions on water supply in this House was advised in 2022 that there were approximately 172,000 or 10% of households depending on private sources of water supply. These are rarely tested, they are not monitored and they could potentially be a cause of illness. They are also quite unreliable for the households involved.
It is ironic, to some degree, that the State has embarked on, and given a commitment, that we were going to roll out broadband to every home in the country but yet there are 172,000 households for which we have not provided a public or a group water supply. We should look at that. There were schemes in the past such as the CLÁR programme which funded and supported the funding of water installation in those remote, rural locations. We need to look at something like that again.

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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