LIMERICK’S water infrastructure is “woefully inadequate”, Mayor John Moran told Council members.
Mayor Moran said at the April full monthly meeting of Limerick City and County Council that the critical issues of water and wastewater infrastructure were high on his agenda during his recent meeting with Taoiseach Micheál Martin.
“We pointed out that the lack of progress on committed projects, or lack of commitments to projects of strategic importance, basically mean that we can’t build houses,” he told Council members.
“We specifically asked the government to provide clear timelines and funding mechanisms to see what can be done and what temporary measures can be put in place to ensure the delivery of essential infrastructure to allow housing to proceed,” he explained.
Fine Gael councillor Tom Ruddle had a motion on the agenda calling for government intervention to start the process of upgrading Newcastle West sewerage system. He also called for interim measures to be put in place while the upgrade takes place and urged Limerick’s first citizen to lead the charge on the matter.
“This is an issue that has arisen in the last year. Up to then, we were led to believe that there was plenty of capacity in the sewer in Newcastle West,” he told the Mayor.
“At the moment there are places trying to build houses and are being held up by Irish Water. It’s sewer, not water, is the issue. We’re the biggest town in the county and it’s a place that’s growing at a very fast rate,” Cllr Ruddle declared.
Seconding Cllr Ruddle’s motion, Cllr Liam Galvin (FG) asked the Council executive how they are to achieve their housing targets if they can’t build in Newcastle West.
“There are other villages that are in dire straits, for instance Tournafulla. There are other towns within this local authority, if they aren’t at capacity, they’re very close to it,” Cllr Galvin warned.
“We have a situation, it’s farcical, where we have lands designated for housing in Newcastle West. Now we want to demand money from them because they are serviced sites, but they are serviced sites with no capacity.”
Mayor Moran told councillors that it would be hard to disagree with anything that they said, reassuring them that Newcastle West was very much on his agenda when he met the Taoiseach on Friday last.
“We asked a specific question, given the strategic importance of Newcastle West and the pressing demand identified through the HNDA (Housing Need and Demand Assessment) – will the government prioritise and expedite the planned €6million upgrade of Newcastle West wastewater treatment plant?” he said.
Council Director of Planning, Environment, and Place-Making, Vincent Murray, added that Uisce Éireann has commenced the process of designing the upgrade to the treatment plant in the town. However, he pointed out that it will be at least five years before Newcastle West sees a new treatment plant.
“There’s a solution being put in place to put in temporary treatment plants. Now we’re meeting them in relation to the specifics. I’m aware they are going ahead with one scheme in Cork, and they’ve learned a lot from that. Hopefully we can start to talk to developers about that,” Mr Murray commented.
Cllr Ruddle urged Council management to do everything they can to address this issue and to keep the pressure on the government and Uisce Éireann.
