Leaks in Shannon water plan
A plan to pipe water from the Shannon to supply the needs of Dublin and the greater eastern and midlands area took a hit this week, with Tipperary county councillors passing a motion calling for an independent review of the project.
Nenagh’s Cllr Seamus Morris told last Monday’s October meeting of the council that Irish Water was incapable of delivering the project, and he received full support from several councillors when he said the scheme should be abandoned altogether.
There was not once dissenting voice among the 40 member council when Cllr Morris put forward his motion calling for an independent review of the project as he branded Irish Water “a useless public utility”.
“Running a six foot diameter pipe of 170 kilometres through the best farmland in north Tipperary and all the way to Dublin would be environnmental vandalism and the most un-green project ever,” said Cllr Morris.
He said there “never was a project less needed”, especially now that the country’s demographics had been changed radically by the Covid pandemic. The figures that Irish Water used originally to justify the project were now out-dated because so many people were moving out of the capital to work remotely from rural counties.
The timeframe for delivering the project had run way off course, which was proof that Irish Water was incapable of delivering the project, set to go before an oral hearing of An Bord Pleanala in 2019 but still not even reaching that stage.
Cllr Morris added that leaking pipes in Dublin would result in millions of litres of expensively treated water pumped from Parteen ending up in the ground.
He could not understand why just one of Tipperary’s five TDs – Mattie McGrath – had spoken out against the scheme or why the project was still included in the new National Development Plan.
“Irish Water should not be given control of a cup of water, let alone the pumping of 300 million litres a day out of the Shannon,” declared the Nenagh councillor.
SECONDER
Cllr Pat English seconded the motion calling for an independent review of the project. He described Irish Water as “just a total quango”.
“Two billion euro of taxpayers’ money is being put in to this and I’m not happy about that, so I think an indepenent review is needed,” said Cllr English.
Cllr David Dunne said he had been inundated with complaints from members of the public in regard to Irish Water’s lack of action on upgrading water supply and waste water treatment schemes in Tipperary. If the company was a private entity it would be gone out of business based on its performance.
“This pipe might be running through the north of the county, but we do care about this in South Tipperary too. I would not let one drop of water out of Tipperary,” said Cllr Dunne, who is based in Carrick-on-Suir.
Significantly, councillors who were members of government parties were also vocal in their opposition to the project.
Fine Gael’s Cllr John Crosse said Irish Water had no significant way of funding itself following the rejection by the public of household water charges. It depended on the government for cash and was therefore always going to be starved for income to carry out vital works.
His party colleague Cllr Michael Fitzgerald said he fully supported the motion put forward by Cllr Morris.”There’s an amount of common sense missing in a lot of [Irish Water] projects. This project is clearly not goint go work when your talking in the region of €2 billion, and the costs will not stop at that. The amount of water currently being lost through leaking pipes in Dublin is unreal and this issue is not being addressed.”
Cllr Fitzgerald said better use of money could be made if Irish Water instead concentrated on upgrading water supply and waste water treatment systems that were badly in need of upgrading in many towns and villages.
Cllr John Carroll of Fianna Fáil also supported the motion as did Fine Gael’s Cllr Ger Darcy.
Cllr Carroll said all the other eight councillors who were members of the Nenagh Municipal District Authority were supportive of the stance taken on the issue by their colleague Cllr Morris. He said there was “growing anger” among the public and elected representatives in relation to the performance of Irish Water, which, he said, was a company that placed a lot of stress of producing “glossy brochures”.
FARMER PROBLEMS
Cllr Ger Darcy said he had no problem with an independent review being sought. The project was in the planning stages for so long that it was causing real problems for farmers in north Tipperary and elsehwere who would be impacted by the proposed pipeline.
As a farmer himself who would be directly impacted by the pipeline, he said he was part of a group of farmers that had made a submission to Irish Water; the replies they received to their concerns were not satisfactory. Farmers were being held back from re-seeding and putting up new fencing in fields along the route of the pipe.
Consultants who had carried out surveys on lands for Irish Water a few years back were turning up again to carry out identical surveys, telling landowners the original surveys they conducted were now out of date due to the delays in delivering the project. “It’s frustrating people becuse this is going on for ten years now.”
Cllr Joe Hannigan, Mairín McGrath and Sean Ryan were among other councillors who supported the motion, while the council’s CEO, Joe MacGrath, said there was “a degree of frustration” even among the executive of the council in relation to the delivery of water supply and waste water treatment projects in the county.
Mr McGrath said the council would ultimately be asked to make its views known on the project when an oral hearing is conducted by An Bord Pleanala.
He said the Commission for Regulation of Water Utilities (CRU) had been tasked by the government to carry out an independent review of the project that would look at the rationale as to why Irish Water opted for an extraction scheme from Parteen above other options.
Cllr Morris said he was delighted to see such all rounded support for his motion.
“This unanimous support is really fantastic.”