Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 23 June 2021
120. Deputy Duncan Smith asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the grants that have been allocated to a rural water scheme (details supplied) over the past number of years; the number of grants drawn down by the scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33656/21]
View answerMy Department’s Rural Water Programme provides capital and operational funding to group water schemes. The day-to-day administration of the Programme is devolved to local authorities.
The Multi-annual Rural Water Programme provides capital funding under a number of measures to enable group water schemes to resolve infrastructural deficiencies in particular those that are causing or risk water quality issues in their supply. In order to avail of funding under the multi-annual programme schemes are expected to adopt the most sustainable approach to resolution of issues.
Under the Multi-annual Rural Water Programme 2016-2018 the group water scheme named in the details supplied was allocated €89,490 under Measure 1 to address water quality issues. None of the funding was drawn down by the scheme.
Under the current Multi-annual Rural Water Programme 2019-2021, an allocation of €40,000 was made to the scheme under Measure 5 for it to be interconnected to, and taken in charge, by Irish Water. The allocation was subject to the following condition:
“The Panel notes that this scheme is on the [Remedial Action List for Group Water Schemes]. Accordingly, given the potential water quality risks for consumers on the scheme the Panel strongly recommends that the local authority quickly co-ordinates all actions necessary to enable connection of the scheme to & its supply from the Irish Water network. These actions include co-ordinating the completion of all necessary documentation, meeting & where possible bringing forward in the programme the proposed works to enable the water quality risks on the scheme to be resolved quickly.”
My Department understands from the local authority that none of the funding has been drawn down to date.
An annual subsidy is payable by local authorities to group water schemes towards their operational and management costs of supplying water for domestic use. The amount of annual subsidy recouped to the local authority for the scheme in recent years is given in the table below.
|
Year |
Amount recouped (€) |
|
2016 |
5,076.00 |
|
2017 |
4,643.00 |
|
2018 |
4,643.00 |
|
2019 |
9,471.00 |
|
2020 |
6,629.70 |
