Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THERE ARE 35 towns and villages in Ireland where raw sewage is released into the environment every day.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is critical of Irish Water in its analysis of urban waste water treatment last year, and said that treatment at 19 of Ireland’s 172 large towns and cities, including Dublin and Cork, failed to meet standards set to prevent pollution.
Irish Water has admitted progress has been “slower than anticipated” but said that “real and tangible progress” is also being made.
In a report released this morning, the EPA said that “uncertainty in delays in delivering critical wastewater infrastructure is undermining confidence and prolonging the risk to the public”.
It identifies 113 priority areas where improvements are needed to prevent water pollution, eliminate discharges of raw sewage, meet EU treatment standards and protect bathing waters and freshwater pearl mussels.
Some improvements in performance were in evidence last year, the EPA said, including the removal of the raw sewage discharges from one town and improvements in treatment at nine towns and villages where waste water was the main issue.
However, significant problems remained according to the EPA.
It said: “The final deadline for all large urban areas to meet EU treatment standards was 2005 and it is unacceptable that treatment at 19 areas failed to meet the standards in 2019.
“These include the greater Dublin area, served by Ringsend treatment plant, which is of significant concern because it produces almost half (44%) of Ireland’s waste water.”
The EPA said that the Ringsend plant repeatedly failed to meet standards last year because it does not have the capacity to effectively treat all the sewage it receives.
However, it said that Irish Water is upgrading the plant and advises it will be completed in 2025.
Three beaches where waste water contributed to poor quality bathing waters were also identified, in Clifden and Ballyloughane in Galway and Merrion Strand in Dublin.
Dr Tom Ryan, director of the EPA’s office of environmental enforcement, said: “Raw sewage discharges pose an unacceptable risk to the environment and public health. Two years ago, Irish Water advised it would provide necessary treatment infrastructure by the end of 2021 for 30 of the 35 areas discharging raw sewage. It has now revised this down to just two areas, resulting in significant delays in bringing projects to completion.
Plans are only effective if implemented, and the inherent uncertainty of these plans is a serious cause of concern for the EPA. Irish Water must remedy the underlying causes for the delays in delivering this critical infrastructure to ensure that raw sewage discharges are eliminated.
In a statement, Irish Water’s managing director Niall Gleeson said: “We are making real and tangible progress working with local communities to deliver critical infrastructure which has suffered from years of historic underinvestment.
“Since 2014 we have made considerable progress in removing 130 areas from the priority area list, and have plans for the majority of the remaining 113 areas. We are always striving to prioritise the best possible service improvements, while maximising value-for-money with funding available.
Progress across a portfolio of projects has been slower than anticipated as we deal with an unprecedented level of statutory and planning issues.
Delivering new infrastructure where it never existed presents a range of challenges - from competing investment priorities, to community support, to planning consents in addition to land acquisition which can take to up to two years for just one project. Indeed, there is a concerning upward trend in the number of acquisitions subject to CPO orders which remains a last resort.
Gleeson added that it expects to start work next year in 12 more communities where raw sewage is being discharged with the work of most of the remaining areas to begin in 2022 or 2023.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
This is beyond belief in this day and age. No country has a right to treat the ocean in this manner!
@Angela Mac Shane: it really begs belief doesn’t it in 2020!
we are letting sewage seep into the sea, what are these environmental agencies doing at all?
If they know about it then they should be getting straight on to fixing it, what’s the point in just knowing about it, we want to know what they are going to do about it, now! Cleaning and filtering waste is not a new phenomenon, if they know where it is happening then they should get right on to fixing it immediately, we are hearing about this problem for years, I want to read in the news this morning that the EPA and whoever else are fixing it.
@Melina Roberts: Used as a resource in many parts of the world producing biogas and biofertilser.
@Melina Roberts: Do you think the Irish Government or Irish Water have the right to build waste treatment plants wherever they want regardless of objections or court case appeals? The plant in Arklow has been in the pipelines for about 15 years but with the objections etc building is only starting next year. So yes they do know where it’s happening and are trying to fix it but with objections etc it takes years to come to fruition.
Ah’wait, say nothing about paying for water. The Shinner’s will bore you about civil entitlements.
@Del Boy:
Dont need to be a shinner to have a gripe about IW.
@Del Boy: What has SF got to do with the fact that Irish Water can’t do their job?
@David Corrigan: He is getting at the fact IW need proper funding to do their job and SF were in favour of water charges initially and then they did a u turn when they saw Paul ‘let’s have a march’ Murphy’s approach was popular. IW must be kept in public ownership though.
@David Corrigan: This issue goes way back before IW came into existence. Ballyhack/Arthurstown for instance, 40yrs+ raw sewage directly to the sea has been an issue in the area. And Wexford CoCo do about it in all those years ? Absolutely nothing. But people now take the agenda driven route of blaming Irish Water for the situation, despite the fact they are the only ones ever to have acted to remedy it. https://www.independent.ie/regionals/newrossstandard/news/13m-wastewater-plant-is-set-to-transform-hook-area-39643312.html
@Tommy Roche: Well over 70% of the Irish people voted for parties that said they would do away with Irish Water, of course FF were lying but either way you are in the minority by supporting IW. I’m not a “shinner” either. But I don’t see anyone stopping SF from gaining power with the current conduct of the FFG government regarding accountability for rule breaking.
@Del Boy: You going to start charging rent for that space in your head occupied by Sinn Féin?
So, everyone wants it fixed
.
but no one wants solution in their backyard?
@Eoin McLove: the proposed location for the treatment plant in one of the villages is in a valley that is regularly flooded, so I’d say the people opposed to that one have an issue a bit bigger than NIMBY.
A direct result of abandoning water charges
@John Mulligan: I thought the green bond sorted that problem out? Took the cost of the gov balance sheet?
@John Mulligan: Good man John, if the powers that be dumped all that shi#e on your head you would still ask for more. Sad.
@G Row.: Water charges were a means for IW to borrow money needed to fix sewage discharges by building water treatment plants. The populist position of PBP, SF and others consigns IW to never having enough funding.
@Fionn Darland: Irish water was brought in as a means to tidy it all up for sale.
You have to be fairly gullible to believe otherwise.
@G Row.: Well (pardon the pun), IW has to remain in public ownership so no one can sell it off. The water charges would have enabled it borrow on the back of an income stream (pardon the pun). Given what happened, no party will ever broach water charges again which is to the detriment of us all as IW will never have sufficient funding to get us those clean beaches we want. Great to have an article not about leaks – oh wait.
@Fionn Darland: @Fionn IW has to remain in public ownership only because of the so called populist position of PBP,SF and others as you put it.
FFG Would sell the kitchen sink if one of their buddies could profit from it.
@G Row.: It was never the intention to sell IW.
Listened to CEO of Irish Water on radio this morning.
It takes decades to get a scheme through Co Councils Judicial reviews, appeal to EU.
That costs more than the actual construction.
Take the politicians and lawyers out of sewerage and the water will be cleaner.
@John Lynch: Yeah. Do away with planning, environmental protection and public consultation and all will be OK.
@Nick Caffrey: Agreed. Red tape is an unnecessary industry.
Wonder what that map looked like 20 years ago, water seemed a lot cleaner this summer……
@Carag MacBhairbor: did you see the amount of emergency beach closures? Record amount.
@Pat O’Brien: not all of those related to sewage, heck looking at that map it would suggest the majority in Clare at least had no raw sewage being pumped out there. Practically every beach South of doolin was closed twice last summer but only kilkee has raw sewage, liscannor could be to blame for Lahinch but the river estuary at the north end of the beach was the last part of the beach to clear for one of the closures.
So how can the greens say we can accommodate 10 million people on this island?
Our environment will be devastated.
@Owen:
The birth rate is plummeting. Where are the extra millions coming from? Don’t tell me, I know, but can say without being a r-a-c-i-s-t
They make me laugh. The ‘majestic shannon’ is full of s…. because there’s no law stopping cruisers from having a sea toilet which means everything is going into the river .
@Margaret Doyle:
Very wrong, there are very few vessels using sea toilets any more.
At least 90% are using holding tanks and most of the pump out facilities are working well
We are hoping to get more on line for 2021.
@Michael Clinton: great to hear that and hope it gets there AsAp.
The Celtic tiger came and gone and the government of the time spent all the money on themselves and wasted the rest and now they want us to cough up again .
In the 80s Iraq had a digestor for the city sewage, the methane gas created enough electricity to run half of the citys needs.
German farmers have them for the cow waste and these run the power to the farms.
Pig farmers in Australia have been doing it for decades .
Now the Greens are in power, they won’t push biofuels, they’re still shipping rubbish to Asia and sewage into our seas.
And they wonder what happened to Fungi, maybe he will come back as Fungus, the super hero that sprays Covid-19 killing cures from his orifices.
Ahhhhh the great Irish Water
Current pup payment 330k people x say average €300 person x 2 weeks = €198 Million. That would take care of a massive amount of planning and construction costs. Problem solved.
@Karl: Do you mean allocate that 198 million to construction costs and let the 330K people go without a penny?
@David Corrigan: i mean spend wiser.
I know for a fact that raw sewage goes into the river that flows through the village I live in – and it’s not on the list.
Plus you can draw a wide line between Cobh and Moville and between Howth and Killala and apparently not come anywhere near a settlement where it happens – that can’t be right.
35? I’d say quadruple it.
@Macus Mc Mahon: absoluty agree this is not the true story. I live in Portmarnock co Dublin and it’s an open sewer going straight into a bird sanctuary. The smell of the place is appaling right by a wonderful new cycle lane. It’s such a 3rd world standard the Gov should be hauled before the courts. And I don’t accept the planning is to blame. If its raw sewage then it’s a public health concern and immediate action needs to be taken. As far as I know Irish water received at least 1.5.billion through the Green bond so this should be sorted and beaches should not be closing.
This is a disgrace. If any individual was suspected of dumping raw sewage they would be dealt with severely and rightly so. I can’t understand how this practice is allowed to continue
35 towns and villages where human waste flows straight into our water supply, yet not one council ask to account where taxpayer funds where spent. almost 2billion yearly taken though motor tax. that ended up wasted on councillors pet projects to get re elected. I am surprised that Athlone is not highlighted. No mention how any rainfall seems to increase the amount of human faeces in our green and fertile land. Athlone is not mentioned, although it has a overflow into the Shannon where boats are moored.
We are talking about importing fracked gas from America while the ingredients for biogas is killing our fish stocks.
Here in Mullingar we have grass growing on the surface of the river Brosna.
Note. 8 locations in DONEGAL, 6 in Cork County Council area, 4 in Clare yet none in Kerry County Council areas. This looks very much like a measure of the level of pro activity and activity of the Local Authorities. Please correct me if this is an unfair interpretation , by way of real facts as distinct from opinions.
have your say