Exciting times ahead for investment in Ireland’s public water services

As Ireland’s national public water utility, Uisce Éireann is central to achieving our national commitments across a range of key areas, in particular supporting housing and economic growth, protecting the environment and contributing to the achievement of climate resilience and adaptation policies, by Maria O’Dwyer, Infrastructure Delivery Director, Uisce Éireann.

We are facing into an exciting time for Ireland’s critical water and wastewater infrastructure. After just over a decade in operation, Uisce Éireann has already delivered very significant investment and improvements across our asset base.

As Infrastructure Delivery Director with Uisce Éireann I am excited by the opportunities that present themselves to us over the coming years; opportunities to really transform our water services through strategic investment and targeted delivery. The Government recently approved our Strategic Funding Plan which sets out funding requirements of €16.9 billion to 2029. Our Capital Investment Plan of €10.3 billion for 2025-2029 has now been submitted for approval to our regulator, the Commission for Regulation of Utilities. We look forward to working with all our stakeholders to deliver on this ambitious plan while recognising that ongoing high levels of investment will be required over several decades to address the legacy of under-investment in water services and realise our ambition to build truly world-class water services.

Key milestones ahead

Uisce Éireann has a number of key projects nearing completion or progressing this year that will be transformative in terms of providing secure, resilient and sustainable water services for millions of people right around this country.

The Water Supply Project – Eastern and Midlands Region is by far the largest water infrastructure project ever undertaken in this country and will involve the development of a new abstraction of water from the Parteen Basin on the lower Shannon with the capacity to supply over half of the population of the country across the Midlands and Eastern region including the Greater Dublin Area. Having just completed a successful public consultation on the project over recent weeks, our team aims to lodge a strategic planning application before the end of the year.

Progress is continuing on other critical projects including the Greater Dublin Drainage project and the Athlone Main Drainage project. My team and I look forward to working with all stakeholders to progress these – and other essential projects – over the coming investment cycle.
In the shorter term, we have several strategically important projects nearing completion that will bring huge benefits to communities by supporting the development of new housing, improving services for our customers, and enhancing our environment. The Arklow sewerage scheme is a prime example of this. The project, which represents an investment of €139 million, will end the decades-long unacceptable practice of discharging raw sewage into the Avoca river. Construction work is now largely complete and final commissioning will take place in the coming months. This project represents another major milestone in Uisce Éireann’s capital investment journey to end the practice of discharging untreated sewage into our waterways and sea. Since 2014, we have built new wastewater infrastructure for 34 towns and villages across the country, ending the discharge of raw sewage into the environment, with a further 7 locations under construction. Arklow is the largest town still without treatment and its completion will mean that over 85 per cent of all raw sewage discharges by volume will have been eliminated.

Supporting the development of large-scale infrastructure

The need for the Water Supply Project, Greater Dublin Drainage and other essential water and wastewater infrastructure is critical to ensuring we can achieve the widest benefit to the greatest number of people. Timely and impactful decision making around these projects must be prioritised by consenting authorities and monitored to ensure the achievement of national strategic objectives. With the enactment of the Planning and Development Act, focus now turns to implementation, oversight, accountability and cooperation if the new provisions and regime are to be successful in alleviating the pressures in the system. It is essential that critical infrastructure providers and national strategic infrastructure projects are kept at the heart of the statutory approval process and prioritised accordingly, in order to support all other development across the country.

Another critical change to support the timely delivery of water infrastructure projects would be a move to a committed multi-annual funding structure.

Under Uisce Éireann’s current funding model, capital funding is provided through an allocation of Exchequer funding via the Government’s annual budgetary process. The reliance on this process creates funding uncertainty from an operational and capital delivery perspective. There is no guarantee the level of required funding will be sustained year-to-year which has a distinct knock-on impact on planning infrastructure and capital maintenance, as well as on Uisce Éireann’s stakeholders, contractors and supply chain which depend on certainty in order to deliver value-for-money in our projects. It also impacts on our ability to adequately plan for the skills and future resourcing requirements needed in the water industry, affecting education, apprenticeships and critical skills needs.

Moving to a committed multi-annual structure, would provide stability and certainty to our supply chain partners, and bring alignment with Uisce Éireann’s multi-annual revenue control set by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities.

As anyone who works in large scale infrastructure delivery knows, predictable pipelines of work are essential for effective and efficient delivery of infrastructure on the scale we are doing nationally.

We have made significant progress over the last decade in addressing the legacy of under-investment in water services. But continued investment in and support for Ireland’s public water assets and services are fundamental to supporting these objectives. We are ready to assist the Government in meeting its agreed agenda.

I am confident that our teams across Uisce Éireann, working alongside our contracting and delivery partners, have the expertise, skills and commitment to deliver the water and wastewater infrastructure Ireland needs now and into the future. We have a big job ahead of us but I firmly believe we are on the right track and have the plan and the people to deliver for Ireland.

W: www.water.ie