2025-10-16

I want to express my deepest sympathy at the tragic loss of life in Donaghmede in my constituency. I express my hope that all those injured have a quick and speedy recovery. I am aware the gardaí and emergency services responded swiftly and it is an ongoing investigation. I raise something I have spoken about since entering this House, which is water quality in Dublin Bay. I have heard multiple TDs across this House mention it and many of my constituents in Clontarf, Raheny, Sutton and Howth have emailed me about getting sick due to swimming in Dublin Bay. This is not acceptable. Dublin Bay is supposed to be a UNESCO biosphere and an EU-protected bathing water. It is a complex issue. I have met with Uisce Éireann, which did have a huge body of work but what it is doing at present is not acceptable. The HA 08 is the catchment of all of Dublin Bay - the Tolka, the Santry, the Liffey and every tributary. We need to look at the whole system or we will never fix the bay. Right now, and the Tánaiste has spoken about judicial reviews, there is a judicial review going on the wastewater treatment plant. Judicial reviews are there for a reason, that is, when the State is not doing the correct thing. It did not check every single one of the 380 inflows into Dublin Bay. The biggest problem with this drainage strategy is it is not taking into account these run-offs and the two types of capacity with this wastewater treatment plant are not being taken into account. There is the treatment capacity of the plant, which is at 2.4 million, but there is also hydraulic capacity. We have seen in Dublin's Ringsend wastewater treatment plant what happens when it rains. The plant's hydraulic capacity gets overwhelmed and there is a run-off into the bay. We have all seen that famous drone photo of a huge run-off that was not able to be stopped and reached up to 3,000 parts per million E.coli in the water, which is seven times the recommended safe amount. When rainwater flows into the combined sewers, it overwhelms that capacity and, as I said, already, this is not being taken into account. That is why there is a judicial review and why it needs to be taken into account. The other issue that is very important for the public to know is that the greater Dublin drainage plan has a 150,000 population equivalent and nearly a third of the load is for Intel. That is for industry, not for housing. Intel treats its own water abroad in the US. Why can it not do it here? When we bring in the private wires Bill, it will help industry to create green energy onsite and have their own wastewater treatment plants. I urge that to be brought through as quickly as possible. The other opportunity is oyster farms. I was elected with my literature mentioning oyster farms. The UK, US, China and Australia are all using oyster farms as a nature-based solution. It is there, it is proven and it is better than any man-made solution. After the oyster farms are complete, they can be ground up and used as fertiliser.

That is a new one for me but I will take that away because we need new, novel and important ideas. I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. My comments relating to Donaghmede stand in the sense that it is a deeply tragic, upsetting and a very serious incident. It merits full investigation in the first instance by the gardaí and that is under way and more broadly regarding safeguarding protocols. I join with the Deputy and everyone in thinking of the staff and the very difficult situation they endured and those words do not capture it, and also the gardaí who arrived on the scene. Without cutting across their investigation, I can only imagine they arrived at a very difficult scene but played a very important role in restoring a degree of safety to that situation. The issue of water quality is really important, and I thank the Deputy for his work on that. That is why when we entered Government we decided to establish a Cabinet committee on water quality because there is this need to take a whole-of-government look and to bring relevant Departments together under a committee chaired by the Taoiseach and to be able to bring agencies in. Our water quality is a really important issue for a whole variety of reasons, particularly from a public health and well-being point of view. The water quality in Ireland report was published in the past couple of days by the EPA. That summarises water quality from 2019 to 2024. I am pleased to point to some areas where there were bad results previously but where there are now positive results. We also have to be honest that the overall findings are concerning because they are now saying 52% of surface waters in Ireland are currently meeting their water framework directive target, which is down from the previous period where it was 54%. That gives us some indication of the scale of the challenge as well and that is another reason we have invested very significantly in Uisce Éireann. Uisce Éireann ran a very effective public relations campaign telling everybody it needed more money and got it. It got a lot more money in the national development plan and now we need it, and I say this respectfully, to get on with it and to drive forward those projects. The Deputy may have gone into the individual judicial review but I will not. My comments on judicial reviews were broader. Of course, people have a right to access courts and, more broadly, the right of an individual or group to access courts alongside the common good and public good is always a balance for debate and discussion in society. I agree with the Deputy on the private wires Bill. The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, is eager to progress this as a matter of urgency. It is not all of the solution, as the Deputy rightly suggested, but it does provide some degree of assistance. Government stands ready to invest a hell of a lot more in our water quality through Uisce Éireann. We take very seriously the incredible importance of Dublin Bay as a huge natural resource. We want to see improvements there. I will not say anything which cuts across matters before the courts. We will, at a co-ordinated Government level, pursue all these issues through the Cabinet committee on water quality.

I do not understand why the private wires Bill is taking so long. It is two lines in the SI need to be removed and we need 5 megawatts to be removed from planning. It is very simple. Denmark has done it and the UK has done it. This needs to be done as fast as possible. We have established a committee but we need to establish a multi-agency Dublin catchment control group with clear accountability. As we saw in Bantry with the river, the EPA and everyone went in but no one knew who was responsible for the overflow. Second, we need to publish the monitoring of the 390 overflows into Dublin Bay. At present, we are not monitoring nearly enough and if we do not monitor all the overflows, we do not know how much wastewater we will be treating. As I said about Intel, it needs to treat its own wastewater rather than leaving our taxpayers to fund it through the greater Dublin drainage strategy. The ringfencing of oysters - I like that the Tánaiste mentioned the oysters - needs to be done. Nature-based solutions are the way forward, backed by hydromorphological studies and seasonal public spending. I also thank the Minister of State with responsibility for the OPW, Deputy Moran, for his visit and the work he has done on the flood defence in Clontarf. It is great to see Dublin Bay getting attention.

You will always get attention.

The Deputy has never been lacking in ability to get attention but it is good to have him back in this House. I am glad he is back safe and well. I thank him for his kind words for our Minister of State with responsibility for the OPW and I am pleased to see the progress. I had the chance to speak to both Deputy Heneghan and Deputy Ó Muirí last night regarding some of the progress being made in Clontarf and we need to see a lot more of that. On the private wires Bill, let me ask the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, to come back to the Deputy directly on a timeline. He briefed us at Cabinet on this very recently and it is pretty imminent. There is a lot of good progress being made on that. On the broader issues the Deputy has raised regarding Dublin Bay and the need for information, I will ask the Minister and Irish Water to take a look at that and come back to him directly.