There are currently three separate Domestic Waste Water Treatment System (DWWTS), commonly called septic tanks, grant schemes available to householders.
The purpose of these grants is to provide financial assistance to reduce the environmental impact from defective septic tanks and to protect human health. They are available to householders where a septic tank has been found to be defective following an inspection by the local authority or if located in a designated area of greatest environmental priority.
In November 2023 I announced substantial improvements to the terms and conditions of all three grants. I approved an increase of the funding available to households to €12,000 from €5,000 and also made it is easier to qualify by removing the requirement, for the purposes of the grant, on households to have registered their DWWTS with the local authority.
The changes came into effect on 1 January 2024 and I have no plans to make any further changes at this time.
Further details are available on my Department's website at www.gov.ie/en/publication/6cc1e-domestic-waste-water-treatment-systems-septic-tanks/
The table below sets out the total expenditure by my Department, through local authorities, for DWWTS grants in each of the past five years.
|
2019
|
2020
|
2021
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2022
|
2023
|
|
€497,719
|
€388,983
|
€752,766
|
€981,109
|
€919,389
|
Increasing the funding available and making it easier to qualify is likely to encourage more householders to seek and avail of the grants and consequently help reduce the risk of environmental impact from defective tanks.
I do expect that the improvements made to the grants will result in an increase of applications and expenditure in 2024 and beyond. The expenditure will be dependent on the pace and level of uptake. Therefore it is difficult to accurately anticipate expenditure for 2024, however my Department continues to work with local authorities to monitor uptake and spend.
As regards the number and type of private wastewater systems in the country, the Central Statistics Office (CSO), not my Department, collects this data. Census 2016 recorded that there were nearly 500,000 such systems in Ireland. Further detail is available on the CSO website.
