I want to change the subject matter to housing, which is a very pressing matter in this country. My concern relates to the lack of wastewater treatment plants in our towns and villages in our country. I know that back in April 2022, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage announced €50 million in funding for wastewater treatment plants. He asked every local authority to submit two proposals so that they could be assessed. Today is 11 October, and we still have not seen any of these projects progressing. I know that Galway County Council submitted proposals for projects in two places out of 38 that require wastewater treatment plants. One of them was Clarinbridge and the other was Craughwell. There are 36 more villages and towns that are frozen out of the planning system because they cannot get planning permission to build any type of estate there because the wastewater treatment plants are not there.

I will concentrate on Craughwell for a moment because it is in my own constituency. It was 1998, when Galway won the All-Ireland final, 25 years ago, when Galway County Council first made a proposal to the Department with responsibility for housing to build a wastewater treatment plant in Craughwell. Today, we have housing estates that were built with package treatment plants which have reached the end of their lifespan. They are not being maintained, there is nobody taking responsibility and it is being thrown back on the residents. Irish Water will not touch them and Galway County Council says it is Irish Water's problem. At the same time, there is raw sewage pouring out of these during the winter when the water table is high.

This is an environmental issue and a housing issue. If we keep trudging along the way we are going, we will not be able to achieve growth in these centres, which are going to serve the likes of Galway city. We need to have houses in areas like Clarinbridge, Abbeyknockmoy, Corrofin and Laban to serve Dexcom, which is coming to Athenry. We need to make sure we have housing and people living close to these centres of work. At the moment, in my village of Corofin, you cannot build a house in the village where we have prime land ready for development. The reason is because An Bord Pleanála has decided that any development is premature pending the completion of a public wastewater treatment plant.

At the same time, we have five housing estates, together with a local authority housing estate, working on package treatment plants, which are, as I said, an environmental issue as well as everything else. The €50 million that was put in, and I say this in honesty, would not even cover the cost of what needs to be done in County Galway. I have spoken to officials in different local authorities around the country. I suggest that €500 million from the national development fund that is being created in the budget would help to set out a plan by which we would get rid of the existing package treatment plants as well as provide the infrastructure necessary to start building houses in our communities.

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue of wastewater treatment plants in east Galway. Deputy Cannon raised this with me last week, particularly in relation to Craughwell and Clarinbridge. A new funding stream was launched by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, in April under the multi-annual rural water programme for the wastewater collection and treatment needs of villages and small settlements without access to public wastewater services. All rural local authorities were asked to submit suitable applications for funding for two priority locations by 15 September of last year. Twenty or so schemes came in from across the country and an independent expert panel critically evaluated each of the applications received. Based on a report from the panel, a decision on funding will be made by the Minister shortly. I checked with him this morning and he indicated to me that he should be able to make a decision within the next few weeks but certainly no later than the end of the year. Once the decision is made, local authorities will be notified of the outcome of their applications.

From a broader Government point of view, we believe small towns and small villages have a role to play when it comes to relieving the housing crisis and indeed in providing much-needed housing for an increased population and our growing economy. That can be done in two ways: first, ensuring villages have the infrastructure they need to allow for natural expansion, with maybe a few new houses being built every year and serviced sites being provided to people close to the village; and second, through the Croí Cónaithe fund and the grants we are offering people to take on vacant or derelict buildings, refurbish them and bring them back into use. We can do two things here, namely, breathe life back into old buildings and turn them into homes, and also provide for a small limited amount of natural increase by investing in infrastructure so that every small town and village can grow and make a contribution to what we need to do to alleviate the housing crisis.

The first thing I would say is that the local authorities submitted their applications in September 2022. We are now gone 13 months and maybe in another two months we might have a decision. That is not the end of the story. It is only then that the local authorities will start the procurement of consultants, the design and the procurement of sites. We will probably see these treatment plants coming on stream in about five years' time if we are lucky. We need to tackle this issue as a national issue. We need to put in place a proper plan to see how we are going to provide the infrastructure for the future and tidy up the mess of the past, with all of these package plants that are not being serviced or maintained in our towns and villages.

I agree that the Croí Cónaithe scheme, which I am a great supporter of, is working. However, in Corofin, for instance, there are maybe one or two vacant properties in the village and we have the capability of building maybe 100 houses in that village. It is the same thing in Abbeyknockmoy and in Carrabane, which has two housing estates, a pub and a school. It is frozen. They are all frozen in terms of planning. They cannot get planning permission and the chances of them getting a municipal treatment plant within the very short period of three, four or five years is non-existent unless we have a strategic plan whereby every year we roll out so many of them, so there can be a steady stream of projects being carried out.

There are two aspects to this. The first is bringing vacant and derelict buildings back into use. I am glad to hear there are not many in Corofin but the Deputy will know as well as I do that there are many towns and villages in Ireland where there is a lot of dereliction. Our first priority has to be town centres and village centres first and bringing those vacant buildings back to life. We are offering people grants to do that. We have also given local authorities a CPO fund - rather, a purchase fund - of €150 million, which they can use to buy buildings and bring them back into use. The other area that is important is allowing for a certain amount of natural increase for any town or village. We want to avoid urban sprawl and unnecessary commuting but every town and village should be able to have a certain level of natural increase, particularly for people who come from the area who want to move back or people who want to stay in the area in which they grew up. That is what this €50 million fund is all about. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has said to me that he will be able to make the allocations before the end of the year. Let us see how that goes. If it works well, there is no reason we could not add to that €50 million fund down the line. That will obviously be part of the national development plan review in a few months' time.