In June 2005 I approved funding for the provision of new wastewater facilities at seven locations in County Tipperary as a pilot programme to test a range of new, small-scale wastewater collection and treatment systems under Irish conditions. The pilot programme, proposed by the national rural water monitoring committee, will also test a low cost, low maintenance system to collect, treat and dispose of effluent from existing septic tanks.
The objective of the pilot scheme is to evaluate new approaches to meeting the wastewater collection and treatment needs of rural villages and to examine the potential role for group sewerage schemes in extending the collection systems to households outside the catchment of the new or existing sewerage schemes. The outcome of the pilot programme will inform any review of the current group sewerage scheme grants.