Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 30 May 2023
433. Deputy Patrick O'Donovan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the terms of access to any or all grants for the provision for private wells for private housing who have a connection to public supply, but the supply is continually being interrupted or disconnected; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26337/23]
View answerMy Department provides a grant for the improvement of a private water supply to a house. The purpose of the grant scheme is to assist households in rural areas that are dependent on an existing private water supply (individual well) for their household use, by financially assisting them where they incur capital expenditure, to carry out improvements to the supply to ensure that it is wholesome and clean, or to ensure that the quantity supplied is sufficient to meet the domestic needs of the household. The grant is not available where the house is connected to the Uisce Éireann or a Group Water Scheme network.
Uisce Éireann and the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) have identified Security of Supply as a key metric for the provision of a reliable water supply. The objective outlined by Uisce Éireann in their National Water Resource Plan is to ultimately achieve a level of service of 1 in 50 as a minimum. That is a customer should only expect to experience an outage of severe limitations in their supply once in every 50 years. The CRU’s Performance Assessment of Uisce Eireann published in December 2021 highlights Security of Water Supply along with associated metrics including leakage as key to achieving a sustainable, secure, and reliable drinking water supply whilst safeguarding the environment.
