Uisce Éireann delivers significant improvements in water and wastewater compliance

Sustained high levels of funding will be required to address all priority issues

Uisce Éireann is responsible for Ireland's water and wastewater infrastructure, which includes over 1,700 water and wastewater treatment plants, over 4,000 pumping stations, and 90,000km of pipes. Despite the scale of this network, and the age and condition of much of the infrastructure we inherited, Uisce Éireann has in the past decade delivered improvements across all areas of water services. Compliance with environmental regulations for both water and wastewater are at higher levels than ever before, and new operating standards introduced by Uisce Éireann have been critical in addressing risks and minimising incidents impacting public health and the environment.

Given the scale of investment needed, identifying key priorities for investment has enabled Uisce Éireann to make significant progress in improving water and wastewater services. Highlights include 136 new wastewater treatment built or upgraded since 2014. Raw sewage discharges have been eliminated in 34 locations including large agglomerations such as Cork Lower Harbour, Bundoran and Spiddal, while projects are under construction in nine more locations, including Arklow, Co Wicklow. Other major investments currently underway include the Athlone Main Drainage Scheme and the €550 million upgrade of the Ringsend Wastewater Treatment plant which is due for completion in 2025; this will ensure that over 95 per cent of wastewater generated in Ireland’s large urban areas will be treated to the required standards.

In the first River Basin Management Plan, prior to the establishment of Irish Water (now Uisce Éireann), urban wastewater was identified as the second most dominant pressure on receiving waters; this has now reduced to the fourth which is the largest sectoral achievement, and we have plans to continue this downward trend in our next investment cycle. Urban wastewater is currently identified as the dominant pressure on 197 waterbodies which represents less than 4% of all waterbodies.

We recognise that challenges exist given the age of some of the infrastructure and the scale of investment needed. Many treatment plants were built decades ago and may not have been designed to meet today's environmental standards. This makes them more susceptible to equipment failures, operational issues, and accidental discharges. We acknowledge and regret that there have been several incidents of discharges from treatment plants which have had environmental impacts. Such incidents are not acceptable and we are committed to minimising the recurrence of such incidents in the future.

To achieve this, Uisce Éireann is investing in modernising and upgrading its infrastructure, including replacing outdated equipment and improving treatment processes. This includes much greater oversight and monitoring of water infrastructure through the introduction of telemetry which has resulted in an increase in the reporting of incidents. Previously many such incidents may have gone unreported due to the absence of standardised reporting and oversight processes. This enhanced monitoring has also enabled Uisce Éireann to identify risks and prioritise investment in areas where it is needed most.

Uisce Éireann has made significant progress in improving compliance and addressing under-investment in Ireland's water and wastewater infrastructure. In 2023 we invested €1.2 billion in water and wastewater services and we estimate it will require a minimum investment of €55-€60 billion up to 2050 to enable growth, improve compliance and increase the resilience of our assets.