Getting response from Uisce Eireann as hard as getting audience with Pope, says TD

CORK South West TD Michael Collins says he has secured a commitment from senior Uisce Eireann officials that they will ‘directly and immediately engage with him’ regarding the decades-long scandal of untreated raw sewage exposure affecting the Shannonvale community in Clonakilty.

Deputy Collins raised the matter during a meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine when it met to resume discussions on Ireland’s compliance with the EU’s Nitrates Directive.

The Independent TD also highlighted how farmers are routinely and unfairly scapegoated as environmentally irresponsible with respect to the impact of agricultural practices on drinking water quality: ‘What we are witnessing with respect to Shannonvale is a chronic and almost systemic lack of responsiveness that is generating active threats to public health. This cannot continue,’ said Deputy Collins.

‘I have consistently raised this issue at ministerial level and in the Dáil and I have also clearly spelled out the need for the immediate prioritisation of upgrading works to address a problem which astonishingly has been going on now for the better part of 26 years.’

Despite this, he said, Shannonvale was not included in the capital investment plan 2020-2024 by Minister Darragh O’Brien’s department.

‘It has been my experience to date that trying to get a meaningful engagement with Uisce Eireann has proven about as difficult as getting an audience with the Pope during Easter Week,’ said the TD.

Meanwhile, Cork South West TD Deputy Christopher O’Sullivan outlined that Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien has written to the ceo of Uisce Eireann, Niall Gleeson, seeking progress on the sewage issue that has been plaguing the village park for well over a decade.

The letter outlines the fact that the Minister has met with residents in the area and saw first-hand the issues being experienced there.

Deputy O’Sullivan said: ‘We need pressure from all angles at this point to get this across the line, while Minister Darragh O’Brien has no input into the day to day running of Uisce Eireann, it is important to note that the capital funding allocation is decided by the Minister for Housing.’

‘I think it is vitally important that the ceo Niall Gleeson sits up and takes note. It’s unusual for a Minister to intervene in this way and therefore, it should certainly highlight the desperate situation that the people of Shannonvale find themselves in,’ he continued. ‘It is something I have campaigned for, for a long time and Uisce Eireann need to stop hiding behind bureaucracy and reports and priortise the development of an adequate waste water treatment structure here.’