The government has been asked to fast track funding and legislation that will allow Irish Water to take charge of private wastewater treatment plants.
Galway TD Sean Canney said that there are over 560 housing estates with private wastewater treatment plants which Irish Water is not taking in charge.
“The onus is left with the residents of these estates to maintain the plant. It is a huge burden on residents”.
“So far the Government have allocated €3.36 million to sort 26 of the treatment plants but at that rate of progress it will take over 20 years to sort out the issues nationally”.
Deputy Canney said that it is unfair for homeowners to bear the financial burden of maintaining these plants.
“The Developer Provided Water Services Infrastructure Scheme (DPI) is the mechanism to deal with these legacy issues as they are an environmental time bomb and a burden to our citizens”.
The DPI has a 2019-2021 programme where local authorities with DPI estates in their area submit bids for funding to connect the estate to the public wastewater network, and take the private plant out of use.
