The Irish Times view on water infrastructure: a threat to public health

The health of a large section of the Irish public is being put at risk because investment in waste water treatment infrastructure is not happening quickly enough, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). What’s more, this failure poses an additional threat of pollution in rivers, lakes and coastal waters. There has been modest progress since 2016 through increased investment by Irish Water, but nowhere near what’s necessary.

The scale of raw sewage discharges from 38 small towns and villages stands out. Counties Cork, Clare and Donegal are worst affected in this regard. Separately, the EPA identifies ongoing problems in 28 out of 179 large towns and cities (including Dublin) where waste water treatment failed to meet mandatory EU standards set to prevent pollution and protect public health. These represent a larger threat because they account for over half of the sewage collected in public sewers. The deadline to comply with the standards was 2005; Ireland is before the European Court of Justice for breaching these requirements.

In many instances, treatment facilities have been installed but are not operating effectively, though deficiencies exist in many plants and public sewers due to “a legacy of underinvestment” prior to Irish Water taking over responsibility for them. The EPA nonetheless has been unequivocal in citing Irish Water for current shortcomings: “It’s unacceptable... there are still 28 large towns and cities discharging inadequately treated sewage that fails to meet these standards”.

Irish Water insists it’s on track to deliver on its investment plans “which will result in no areas in the country having any form of untreated wastewater discharge by 2021”. Its head of asset management, Seán Laffey, said progress in some cases had been slower than they would like “due to complex conditions, planning and other issues”. It has grouped projects and built up expertise while working closely with local authority engineers. The progress is welcome but the scale of ongoing public health and environmental dangers requires more urgent delivery.