Bá mhaith liom fáilte a chuir roimh an tAire. I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government to the House. The Killucan, Rathwire and Rochfortbridge area is no different from any part of Ireland in so far as it has tasted the Celtic tiger in its true sense.
Killucan is my local village and parish. I had the honour of opening the Killucan/Rathwire sewerage scheme in 1988 when I was chairman of Westmeath County Council for the first time. From being a sleepy little village, nestled about nine miles east of Mullingar, Killucan/Rathwire is now a growing area and has experienced the advent of the Celtic tiger. Quite an amount of development has taken place there and the sewage treatment plant will have reached capacity when the current proposed development, which has been granted permission by the Westmeath County Council, is completed. Surface water is another problem that must be addressed. I ask that the capacity of the plant be improved. Westmeath County Council will make an application to the Department of the Environment and Local Government under the serviced land initiative and I hope there will be a positive response. I spoke to the principal of sanitary services engineer of Westmeath County Council today and that application is being prepared at present.
Rochfortbridge is a fast developing town on the N6. It also is in the position whereby its plant will have reached capacity when the current tranche of developments that have been approved by Westmeath County Council are completed. In tandem with what is planned for the Killucan/Rathwire and Rochfortbridge areas, I hope, along with the elected members from both towns, to attract industry. There is no possibility of attracting industry at present because the basic sewerage infrastructure is not sufficient in any of the given areas that I have outlined.
I appeal to the Minister of State to look into the coffers of the Department and come up with the relevant funding under the serviced land initiative which will allow for increased capacity at both sewage treatment plants. An application was made under the serviced land initiative for the Rochfortbridge sewage plant but it did not succeed.
Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government (Mr. D. Wallace): I thank Senator Glynn for raising this matter. The provision of a modern environmental infrastructure to support our economic objectives is a high priority of this Government. This has been and continues to be well demonstrated by the current huge level of investment in the water and sanitary services investment programme throughout the country. This year's water and sewerage services capital investment programme amounts to £275 million, an increase of 50 per cent on 1998 and is the highest ever investment in the water services programme. Under the national development plan almost £3 billion will be spent on the provision of new and the upgrading of existing water supply and waste water treatment works. This represents a threefold increase in investment under the current plan.
County Westmeath has benefited substantially from the increased level of investment in recent years. Major schemes to serve Moate and Tyrellspass have recently been completed at a cost of over £6 million. Work will soon get under way on the extension of the Mullingar water supply to serve Taghmon. Work is also continuing on the construction of a reservoir at Annagh Baylinn to improve the water supply to Athlone. A water conservation scheme is also under way in Athlone while improvements to the town's sewerage collection system are at present in progress.
The Government's serviced land initiative was introduced to address supply-side constraints in the housing market. Under this initiative proposals in respect of a sewerage scheme for Kinnegad, an extension to the Coosan Athlone surface water drainage scheme and an extension to the drainage area adjacent to Mullingar were approved. A proposal in respect of the Rochfortbridge sewerage scheme, which was estimated to cost about £1.6 million, was not approved because the scale of the development envisaged was considered to be out of proportion to the village and the land it was proposed to develop had not been zoned for residential use. Improvement works were, however, previously undertaken to this plant in the mid-1990s under my Department's small schemes programme.
As regards Killucan-Rathwire, no proposals of any kind have been submitted to the Department for up-grading the treatment works serving these two villages. All local authorities were requested last year to carry out an assessment of needs for capital works in their areas and to submit a prioritised list of projects based on the assessment. The assessment will be taken into account in the planning of spending under the National Development Plan 2000-2006.
The assessment of needs for County Westmeath is not yet to hand but Senator Glynn's comments will be borne in mind when the water and sewerage services investment programme for future years is being drawn up.