I thank the Minister very much. We will move now to the Rural Independent Group. I call Deputy O'Donoghue.

Housing for All is non-existent in County Limerick. I put the question now to the Minister as to why that is. Am I correct in saying that Uisce Éireann, formerly Irish Water, was commissioned as a provider of safe, clean and affordable water and wastewater services for all water users? Water and wastewater services were previously provided by the local authorities. It was designed as a stand-alone national authority for water services. Why is this not happening? We are now ready to start building in our towns and villages for our local people and local economies.

The Minister appeared on a video a couple of months ago with Councillor Kevin Sheahan. People have been looking for a treatment system in Askeaton for 37 years. That was promised by all the Ministers outside of this Government and by this Government. It has been 37 years. The Government promised this when I sat on the Adare-Rathkeale council and has yet to deliver it. It just keeps saying it will happen next year.

Some 37 years have passed and Oola is without a proper sewerage system, Kilfinnane is without a proper sewerage system, Dromcolliher is without a proper sewerage system, as are Askeaton and Abbeyfeale. One can go across the board. How am I supposed to ask people to come in and invest in our towns and villages when the Government will not give us the basic services? When will the Minister make Irish Water accountable for this? We asked it to go out and look at the services in Croom. There are 100 houses waiting to be built in Croom. Irish Water came back to the builders and the developers to ask them to pay Irish Water to do a survey in Croom. We have 100 houses that could be built there tomorrow morning. All we are hearing from the Government is the first quarter and then the second quarter. Irish Water is now coming back to ask people to pay for a survey, which was done before it took it over from the councils. Now there is only 300 capacity left on the system, when they have put down a new road. Before they did that I asked if there was enough capacity to service the area including Eli Lilly which is coming to Limerick, which is ten minutes in the road from Croom. We could service that economy, yet it puts down new roads and does not look at the services we need.

I am looking to service a circular economy. God forbid if a business had to go to the bank tomorrow morning to look for a loan. What is the first thing it will ask? It will ask if the business can give its projections for the next five years. The banks will ask about those projections and how many people will come into the area to service the business. One can say one cannot do it as we have no basic water or sewerage services. The population in our towns cannot increase and this means there is no business. It all comes back to infrastructure, about which I have been asking all the time and which the Government has been promising for 20 years and now for 30 years and it still has not delivered for the people of County Limerick out of all of the other counties.

I thank Deputy O'Donoghue for the question. The Deputy is very passionate about this issue, and rightly so. There are many towns and villages across the State that do not have sufficient wastewater treatment capacity or even wastewater treatment plants. The Deputy will be aware that last year I announced in addition to the €6 billion capital budget Irish Water has - it has a multiannual plan so it can plan into the future and deliver those projects - an additional scheme for unsewered villages and I expect to make announcements before Easter on that. There are a number of schemes in Limerick that have been sent forward by the local authority there. The Deputy is right that there are really good villages right across this country that would expand if they had the capacity. We want that to happen.

We are doing that in other ways as well. There is the Croí Cónaithe vacancy grant, for example, which I have extended to rural one-off houses, to towns, to villages and to cities. Since that grant was launched, in Limerick alone we have had 63 applications through the system. We want a lot more. Since 2019 we have brought back 212 properties into use in Limerick. These were vacant and derelict properties. The local authority in Limerick has been very good at acquiring properties through compulsory purchase orders. They have acquired some 153 in the last couple of years.

With regard to the Deputy's assertion that Housing for All does not exist in Limerick, that is just not true. I say that respectfully. We have 1,220 social homes approved in Limerick in the system, with another 1,600 at pre-approval stage. We have moved them through a very good pipeline. We have approved the first two affordable schemes in Limerick, as the Deputy will be aware. The affordable purchase scheme did not exist in Limerick previously. We have a very progressive local authority there.

I will visit Limerick next Monday. The Deputy may be aware that we have invested €116 million in the Opera Square site and the regeneration of Limerick city. This will have a great positive impact on the county also. I will visit the Opera Square site on Monday. We have approved further borrowing there too. There is a number of very significant sites there also, including the Cleeves site. There is an excellent development team at Limerick Twenty Thirty that works very closely with me and with the Department. There is a lot to be positive about with Limerick city and the region. This Government is committed to the regions and to developing in the regions. I have given the Deputy some examples of what we are doing.

The Deputy might be glad to know that I will also visit a private development in Patrickswell, which is 111 new homes, for which people will be able to access the First Home scheme, which is the equity scheme to bridge the gap between the finance a person has and the finance he or she needs. Again, this is in Housing for All. We have had more than 900 approvals for the scheme in six short months. These will be 900 homes for real families there. It is good to see private development happening there too.

Other things need to be done and we need to expedite the delivery of wastewater treatment and especially in areas that do not have systems at the moment. I expect to make announcements in that regard in advance of April. I will keep the Deputy fully informed of that.

I thank the Minister for that response. I am glad the Minister brought up Limerick Twenty Thirty as I am a former member of that board. I understand the investments being made but all the investments the Minister named out today are actually in Limerick city. I want Limerick city to thrive. The Patrickswell development is actually run by the local authority under the city councillors. I am talking about the county. This is where I want to go with this discussion. It is Limerick City and County Council, so the funding should come to city and county councils. When we consider Limerick as a whole in the context of the Land Development Agency it only covers areas that are ten to 15 minutes from the cities. This takes out more than two thirds of Limerick county. This is what I am saying. The Minister is not looking outside of the 15-minute window. The city is in the corner but the county goes all the way to Abbeyfeale and all the way over to the Mitchelstown border. This is what the Government has forgotten about. The Government is not putting in the investment there. I do welcome the investment that is coming to Limerick but I want it to come to all of Limerick. The Government promised in Askeaton that it would deliver but still it has not delivered. When will the Minister deliver? While it is great that the Government promises these things but where can I cash promises? I cannot cash it anywhere. Promises are no good to me unless the Minister fulfils the promise. I will stand over this to make sure that the Government does deliver for county and for city.

I have given the Deputy a number of examples of investment, and not just in Limerick city but also across the county. In Castletroy for example where we have approved-----

It is the city.

It is Limerick City and County Council. The city will drive the region too. We are committed to the county of Limerick as well.

I will hold the Minister to that.

I have given the Deputy a number of real examples of what we are doing there. I have also said that I will be making announcements on the rural towns and villages sewerage scheme before Easter this year. They include schemes in Limerick. These are being assessed right now by the Environmental Protection Agency, by my Department and by Uisce Éireann. This provides additionality that is outside of Irish Water's own capital programme. For the first time, Uisce Éireann did need to see that they had the security of a multiannual programme. It knows it has the capital between now and 2026. That is why we are seeing the ramping up of the delivery of much needed infrastructure right across the counties in the Republic including Limerick. Limerick county is not forgotten about by this Government. I can absolutely assure the Deputy of that. My Government colleagues, the Ministers of State, Deputy Niall Collins, Deputy Kieran O'Donnell, and Deputy Patrick O'Donovan, and Deputy O'Donoghue, will ensure that this is kept to the forefront of the agenda. I will be making announcements with regard to those schemes before Easter.