I along with the Regional Group of TDs called on the Government to make regional development a reality by investing in water and wastewater infrastructure in our towns and villages.
“Regional Group members state that since the inception of Irish Water we have witnessed the abandonment of plans for wastewater infrastructure development in the regions. There is also a continuous concentration on environmental breaches and issues with the infrastructure in the main centres”.
“The Environmental Protection Agency 2019 report is highly critical of Irish Water’s delivery of new treatment plants, noting that towns and villages continue to discharge raw sewerage into nearby waters and highlighted the key issues within the water infrastructure”.
“This Government now wants rid of rural one-off homes, but we cannot build in the towns and villages due to the lack of wastewater services. Towns and villages need investment to provide the infrastructure necessary to attract families to live, work and raise their families. Clean water and wastewater systems are essential components to grow communities. But Irish Water has abandoned Local Authorities plans for wastewater services in these towns and villages due to lack of funding from central government”.
“Regional Group members call on the Government to put in place a transparent cost structure for new, and develop extensions to existing, water and wastewater treatment infrastructure as a matter of urgency”.
“Towns and Villages such as Craughwell, Athenry, Corofin and Abbeyknockmoy are left to stagnate due to the absence of wastewater facilities. These are designates growth centres for Galway but in a time of a housing crisis we cannot build homes in the centres. This situation is replicated across the regions where we could be building communities for people to live in, work and raise their families”.
“The Government needs to implement a development lead infrastructure scheme to fast track infrastructural development in our towns and villages to create balanced development. This balanced development will not happen until we provide this infrastructure, housing in the regions will not be available to meet the demand of remote working. We need to protect our environment and our communities. We must support people living and working remotely to develop growth centres”.
“We cannot tolerate any more reviews and strategy reports we need action by providing a multi annual budget to Irish water to deal with the complete absence of wastewater services in out towns and villages”.