Bord Pleanála decision on ‘vital’ €500m sewage plant delayed to next year

An Bord Pleanála’s decision on a €500 million regional sewage plant, described by Irish Water as “vital” to the development of Dublin, will be delayed into next year, two years after the High Court ordered the board to issue a new ruling on the facility.

The board has in recent days written to Irish Water seeking additional information on the plant, effectively reopening the case despite being told by the courts that it was due to its planning error, and no fault of Irish Water, that the original planning permission had to be quashed.

The board has asked Irish Water to resubmit significant parts of its application for the Clonshaugh wastewater treatment plant, and supply new information, by the end of February 2023 due to “the passage of time” since the original application was submitted.

The plant, at a site east of Dublin Airport, designed to treat the waste of 500,000 people across the Greater Dublin Area, would be the second-largest sewage works in the State after the Ringsend plant in Dublin 4.

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Judicial proceedings

Irish Water’s 2018 planning application, which attracted more than 14,000 objections, was granted by the board in November 2019.

Judicial review proceedings were taken against the board’s decision and in November 2020 the High Court ruled against the board, ordering that the permission be quashed.

In April 2021 Mr Justice Senan Allen ordered that Irish Water should not have to reapply for permission, which would set the project back 16 to 17 months, as the error was with the planning board.

The judge upheld a point in the challenge taken by Sabrina Joyce-Kemper that the planning board failed to comply with its obligations in relation to seeking observations of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the likely impact of the proposed development on wastewater discharges.

He ordered that the board reconsider the case and correct this error. However, 16 months on the board has not yet contacted the EPA for its views on the case and has instead this week asked Irish Water for significant further information on the facility.

A letter to Irish Water’s head of major projects Kevin McSherry seen by The Irish Times states: “the Board has decided that given the passage of time since the submission of the application and the intervening proceedings,” it was providing Irish Water “an opportunity to update” any information provided as part of its original application.

Further the board “requests that you provide your views on whether the discharge of waste water from the proposed development, in conjunction with existing discharge into the receiving waters, would cause or exacerbate breaches” of aspects of wastewater regulations.

A spokesman for Irish Water confirmed it had received correspondence from the board and was “currently reviewing this request and will respond to An Bord Pleanála in due course”.

A spokeswoman for the EPA said it had “not received any request for views from An Bord Pleanála or furnished any submissions in relation to this matter”.

A representative of the board said based on its legal analysis it had decided it should give Irish Water the opportunity to “refresh” its application, before it referred the case to the EPA.