Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 29 Mar 1995

Vol. 142 No. 11

Adjournment Matters. - Castlebar Sewage Treatment Plant.

Mr. Burke

I welcome the Minister to the House. I congratulate him on his new portfolio and I wish him the best of luck in the Department of the Environment. I have no doubt he will do an excellent job; he was an excellent Minister for Health.

The sewerage system in Castlebar is in a terrible state. This problem can be divided into three areas: first, the Castlebar environs, which covers all around the town; second, a tertiary unit for Castlebar; and third, the overloading of the current sewerage system in the town itself, which is the most pressing need at present.

There is a great need for the Castlebar environs sewerage scheme to go ahead as the expansion of the town is most important because all existing developments in two areas of the town are using septic tanks. The provision of a tertiary unit is of the utmost importance because a very high level of phosphates are entering Lough Conn. As the Minister is aware, Lough Conn — an important fishing lake — is a great natural resource for the west. The stock in Lough Conn has been reduced over the last number of years and the high level of phosphates entering the lake has been pinpointed as the reason. It is of the utmost importance that the tertiary unit for the Castlebar sewage plant come on-stream in the very near future.

Solving the problem of the overloading of the present system is also of the utmost importance. As I said, we are talking about a very small urban area which has been included in the extension of the urban boundaries. Castlebar Urban Council has asked Mayo County Council to refuse any planning applications which would be using Castlebar town sewerage scheme because of the overloading of the existing system. It is very important from an expansion point of view to alleviate this problem very quickly because Mayo County Council is on the verge of refusing every planning application that comes before it which would be using the Castlebar sewerage scheme.

This Government has appointed a Minister with special responsibility for the west. We cannot on one hand appoint a Minister for the west and on the other curtail development. I know the Minister has done many things for Castlebar in the past — he has given the go ahead to the hospital and to the kidney unit and we thank him for that; the people in Castlebar and in Mayo appreciate it. This is very important for the development of the town. Castlebar is the capital of Mayo, it is the largest town in the county and we cannot afford to curtail any developments. I urge the Minister to provide the funds to alleviate the overloading of the present sewerage system in the town.

Minister for the Environment (Mr. Howlin)

As Senator Burke said, the town of Castlebar has grown steadily in recent years and is now an active commercial and industrial centre with a population of around 11,000, including the environs. It is obvious that Castlebar is a town which has benefited from a substantial investment in public service infrastructure in recent times and I am delighted that Senator Burke mentioned some of the ones in which I was involved. The town is well served by a new road network as well as a modern water supply system and a sewage treatment plant.

The existing sewerage system, constructed during the 1980s and completed about five years ago, includes a sewage treatment plant with a design capacity for a population equivalent of 20,000 persons. This modern plant has sufficient capacity to meet the future medium term needs of industry, tourism and the private residential sector. The areas within the UDC boundary are also provided with new and upgraded foul and storm water collection systems. Allied to these developments, phase 1 of the Lough Mask regional water supply scheme, developed at a cost of around £15 million, provided Castlebar with a high quality high capacity public water supply capable of meeting all development needs well into the next century.

Much of the recent industrial and residential development could not be accommodated within the urban boundary with the result that the town's environs have seen substantial growth in size and population. This in turn has placed additional pressure on the existing urban area collection system which, on occasion, has given rise to surcharging of the sewers within the urban boundary. Other residential developments, such as those adjacent to the Ballinrobe Road and Saleen Lough, are outside the collection catchment and are served by private septic tank systems. It is desirable that the collection system should accommodate these and similar developments elsewhere within the Castlebar environs.

With the objective of relieving pressure on the town collection system and to extend the system to serve the industrial and residential needs of the town's environs, Mayo County Council has proposed the construction of a new Castlebar environs sewerage scheme costing an estimated £1.6 million. The project consists of the laying of over 12,000 metres of sewers and the construction of three pumping stations. The resulting waste load will be treated at the UDC's treatment plant at Knockthomas.

Senator Burke will appreciate that there are many urgent demands being made at this time on the finances available under my Department's water and sewerage programme. In County Mayo alone, the cost of water and sewerage schemes approved for construction or at present being constructed amounts to some £43 million. This includes new sewerage schemes for the towns of Westport, Bangor Erris and Ballinrobe. A number of other urgently needed schemes have been prioritised for investment under the Cohesion Fund. Applications for grant assistance have been lodged with the EU Commission and a decision on these is awaited. The principal projects involved are new water supply schemes for the towns of Knock, Ballyhaunis, Westport and Louisburgh costing an estimated £26 million. Also included is the proposed sewerage scheme for Claremorris costing around £5.5 million.

Senator Burke will know that Castlebar and County Mayo in general fared very well as far as past investment in water and sewerage services is concerned. The level of existing and planned investment is also very substantial, amounting to some £75 million. The Senator has described well the problems associated with the collection system on the outskirts of the town. I would like to assure him that I appreciate the need for additional sewerage services for Castlebar and its environs. The need must, however, be considered in the context of the available resources and the demands of schemes already prioritised for significant investment. That includes not alone the enormous investment needs of those Mayo schemes referred to earlier, but the many high priority schemes from other parts of the country.

The capacity of a project, such as the major works proposed for the Castlebar environs, to attract EU co-financing greatly enhances my Department's ability to finance such schemes. In this regard, Mayo County Council recently submitted an application for Cohesion Funds for the Castlebar scheme in the context of an integrated application for the protection of the Lough Cullen/Lough Conn catchments. This is being examined at present and my Department will be in contact with Mayo County Council regarding progress with this application. I cannot anticipate when it may be possible to approve the Castlebar scheme. It will take some time yet before the position on EU co-financing can be clarified. I do, however, note the Senator's concern to have this scheme advanced as soon as possible.

Mr. Burke

The pressing problem at the moment is the overloading of the existing system in the town itself. The Minister might look at that because this is curtailing all development on the outskirts of the town.