Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 2 May 2017
426. Deputy Robert Troy asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government to outline his views on Irish Water's engagement with local authorities in view of its capital investment project prioritisation. [19186/17]
Amharc ar fhreagraSince 1 January 2014, Irish Water has statutory responsibility for all aspects of water services planning, delivery and operation at national, regional and local level. Irish Water as a single national utility is taking a strategic, nationwide approach to asset planning and investment, and meeting customer requirements.
Under the Water Services Act (No. 2) 2013, Irish Water is required to consult with a number of stakeholders, including local authorities, when preparing an Investment Plan. Accordingly, Irish Water undertook formal consultations on the emerging Investment Plan with a wide range of stakeholders, including all statutory consultees such as local authorities, the Public Water Forum, and those recommended by the Commission for Energy Regulation. In addition to the formal consultation with local authorities, I understand that workshops were held with water services personnel during the summer of 2016 as part of the development of the Investment Plan, which contributed to the development of Irish Water’s understanding of the asset base and identification of needs across the water supply and wastewater infrastructure.
Irish Water’s primary function is to provide clean drinking water to customers and to treat and return wastewater safely to the environment. In providing these services Irish Water plays a central role in enabling economic growth, protecting both the environment and the health and safety of its customers and the public.
Following decades of under-investment, there are now many competing investment needs across the State. Irish Water’s Capital Investment Plan is an important part of the process of meeting this investment need in a balanced way. In a constrained funding environment, Irish Water needs to understand and consider all available views in order to ensure that available investment is appropriately balanced across competing areas. Consequently Irish Water must take a number of considerations into account when weighing up the relative merits of investment needs.
It is an objective of Irish Water that the interventions in its Investment Plan should be balanced across the various drivers including supporting future population growth, economic development, provision of safe and secure drinking water supplies, minimising the impact of wastewater discharges on the environment and maintaining the Irish Water asset base.
The Investment Plan sets out the approach taken to optimise intervention options by examining their contribution to specific performance targets. Irish Water has taken on board and responded to the consultation process undertaken in setting very challenging targets for the Investment Plan 2017-2021, such as:
- reducing the number of Boil Water Notices in place for greater than 200 days from over 4,000 to zero;
- reducing the number of schemes on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Remedial Action List from 71 to zero;
- increasing compliance with the parameters for Lead in Drinking Water from an estimated 85% to 98%;
- reducing network leakage volume by 180 Megalitres per day;
- rationalisation of 105 Water Treatment Works;
- increasing the Population Equivalent (PE) served by Wastewater Treatment Works compliant with the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive from 2.4m to 4.8m;
- reducing the number of public wastewater agglomerations with no-treatment from 37 to zero.
This investment balancing process towards the achievement of challenging targets is a key element of the value Irish Water brings as a single national utility.
