Uisce Éireann under fire in Cork for delaying housing by its ‘snail’s pace’ on wastewater plants

By Peter McCarthy, Corkman

Cork county councillors have called for the responsibility for wastewater treatment plants to be handed back to the local authority as they accused Uisce Eireann of delaying housing development in the county.

Councillors were responding at this week’s meeting of Cork County Council to a letter from the office of the housing minister saying that the national water utility is working on a position paper on wastewater services.

“After ten years as a utility for Irish Water to say that work is going on to develop a draft guideline for planning authorities really shows the lack of urgency. We all know as elected members that all over the county our drinking water sources, pipelines, reservoirs and treatment plants are all in disarray,” Cllr Finbarr Harrington said.

“The absence of water services is a constraint on housing development. And if they don't fix it, we're not going to fix the housing problem. We need water. We need wastewater. You can't build houses without either.”

Cllr Joe Carroll said: “we have a number of villages and towns in Cork County, in particular in West Cork, that are sterilized completely [i.e. development is prohibited]. And there's nothing going to happen in Dunmanway, Crossbarry, Ballineen, Enniskean because there's no wastewater treatment plants.”

“Uisce Eireann say they can't do it. Well, if they can't do it, let's do it for them. And that's what we should be doing. It should be done for them, even with their own supervision, and then hand it back to them.”

Cllr Sheila O'Callaghan cited Carrignavar and “the lack of any development there currently and going forward. And it's purely down to the lack of wastewater capacity. We're in the middle of a housing crisis and something has to be done to expedite this.”

Cllr Sinead Shepard accused Uisce Eireann of “dictating to the council” in relation to county development plans. “We're basically telling people in the county that they cannot build or live where they've grown up, where their family support is, because of Irish Water and because of wastewater treatment plants not being upgraded.”

She said the council has given the water utility a list of priority projects “but they're getting through it at a snail's pace. They're obviously just not up to the job at all. They’re really holding towns and villages within our county to ransom.”

Cllr Michael Hegarty called for any settlement with fewer than 20,000 people to be handed back to the local authority. “When we were in charge, we did an excellent job. But if we are to take up the responsibility, government has to give us the appropriate funding.”

The problem lies with smaller, developer-led projects, said Cllr Bernard Moynihan. He mentioned a housing development in Kiskeam that is “maxed out at 10 houses” because of wastewater treatment plant constraints.

“Certainly the smaller projects, if they could be left to us to sort them out and we do them up to their [Uisce Eireann] specification, that's all that's required,” he said.

The chief executive of Cork County Council, Moira Murrell, agreed that the lack of wastewater infrastructure is a critical issue across the county. She said the council has proposed a pilot scheme of developer-led wastewater infrastructure overseen by the local authority to deliver faster housing schemes for small towns and villages.

“So if there was some element of DPI [Developer Provided Water Services Infrastructure] or some element of flexibility that allowed us to deliver quicker, we would certainly engage in relation to that,” she said.