The Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, has published a report on urban wastewater treatment. Raw sewage is being discharged from 34 towns and villages. We are told construction will start on 14 locations this year and eight in 2022. A third of these towns and villages will continue to release raw sewage after 2024. The report identifies a number of locations specifically in Cork. Cobh, thankfully, is to be resolved this year, but Ballycotton, Whitegate, Aghada and Mitchelstown are planned for later in the decade, as is Inchigeelagh. The EPA's concern is that repeated plans over the years have not been acted upon.

This is not just an ecological and environmental issue. The lack of these facilities is also impacting on the housing crisis. For many young people with mortgage approval in towns like Mitchelstown where there are capacity constraints who wish to see houses built and where builders with sites are ready to go, the EPA report makes for very grim reading. I ask the Taoiseach to give this his priority.

I thank the Deputy for raising what is a very important issue and I share his impatience. We want to get this done as fast as we possibly can. I was in Cobh recently, as was, I believe, the Deputy. This was a very significant achievement by Irish Water on the wastewater treatment system that is now operational and in place in the lower harbour region of Cork and significant progress was made there.

The EPA, however, has issued its report in respect of 34 towns. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has allocated in the past two budgets and in the July stimulus package significant additional capital funding to Irish Water in a bid to enable it to accelerate its programme. Any such wastewater treatment plant goes through a range of hurdles and logistics. I have seen it myself in places throughout the country where money is allocated, schemes are ready to go ahead. If I may say one final thing in the House on this issue-----

The Taoiseach's time is up.

-----if we are serious about all of these issues as a country and as an Oireachtas, we need to get a bit real in how we deliver these projects faster. They are just being held up all over the place across the board and we cannot afford the luxury of doing that anymore.