We use Google Analytics to see which pages are read and how the site is used, so we know what to improve. This only runs if you accept. See our privacy notice for details.

Dáil
‹ Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation

Quin Road sewage sale

Summary

Deputy McNamara warned that the planned sale of land in Ennis could leave a sewage pumping station and connected estates in limbo. The Minister said the relevant bodies needed to work together across departmental boundaries, and promised to try to bring them into discussion if given the details.

Shannon Commercial Enterprises, the successor to Shannon Development, is selling 5 acres of land in the Quin Road, Ennis. What has that to do with the Minister? In one corner of that land and part of the sale is a sewage pumping station into which flows sewage from Celtic tiger estates which have been taken into charge. Then it is pumped on to a State-owned treatment facility.

Shannon’s position is that after the sale, Irish Water will be free to engage with the purchaser but after the sale Irish Water will effectively be over a barrel – a barrel of sewage flowing backwards into estates that have been taken into charge. Does the Minister agree that is not a way to treat assets owned by State agencies, that that manner of treating them potentially exposes the Exchequer unnecessarily to a very large bill and that this sale should be reviewed in that context?

Comment on this

I do not have the full details of this-----

Comment on this

I am happy to provide them.

Comment on this

-----but it seems to me the relevant bodies need to come together. These bodies are under the aegis of different Departments and should work together to try to find a way through this issue-----

Comment on this

I have written to them all and the silence is deafening. Will the Minister bring them together?

Comment on this

-----while respecting they have different mandates. If the Deputy provides me with the details, we will try to get them talking to each other to see if a way can be found.

Comment on this