Michael Collins
Cork South-West · Independent Ireland · Ireland
“This matter has been raised twice already this morning, but it is hugely important. I will make a personal appeal to the Taoiseach regarding Skyclarys and the further delay that has now arisen. Yesterday, Emma O'Shea came to Leinster House from west Cork with her mother, father and brother.”
“Another huge problem which normally arises in August is that relating to school buses. Parents have no way to get their children to school because of the nearest school rule. The current and previous programmes for Government contain promises that this will be done away with, but nothing has happened. The rule needs to be abolished.”
“Every parent knows that September has become one of the most expensive months of the year. While free schoolbooks are welcome, many families now face growing costs for other items. Parents are being asked to purchase laptops that cost €400 or more, make increased payments for school transport and pay charges to cover examination fees.”
“Either 25 children are left without a school place this September, or two senior infants classes are merged into one class of 34 children. Does the Minister of State agree that schools should not be punished for helping to solve an enrolment crisis? Will he immediately sanction the additional teaching posts required for St.”
“Education should not be measured by means of the distance someone lives from school, and school transport should not be measured on that basis either. I want to raise a matter that Councillor Bill Clear brought to my attention. It is a very serious issue regarding St. Corban’s National School in Naas in County Kildare.”
“I was chairperson of a board of management and know the difficulties that schools face just because they are one or two children short. That can be made up as the year goes on but it is a crisis that Councillor Clear finds unacceptable.”
The complete record
Every one of 1,574 lines we hold for Michael Collins, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 13 of 32.
“This Bill is about something very simple, namely who we trust to go into homes of our older people and people with disabilities and what standards we insist on. Independent Ireland supports strong, common-sense regulation. Nobody wants low-quality or unsafe care happening behind closed doors. There are positives here. For the first time, home support providers will have to register with HIQA. There will be national standards and proper inspections with the person's consent. There will also be a public register that families can check and emergency powers to stop dangerous services. We will finally get real data on where home support hours are going and who is providing them. Regulation on its own is not enough. There is still no statutory right to home care, promised since 2017. It is still missing today.”
“I am back speaking about the Mercosur deal again. It is of huge importance this week in Strasbourg. We have asked the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste to attend the meeting in Strasbourg this week to let them know the importance of the situation we find ourselves in. Independent Ireland has written in Spanish and Italian-----”
“While there is a breath in my body inside in this Parliament, I must stand for those people, and I will continue to stand and support those people until we get justice for the Whiddy Island disaster.”
“It was with gas being delivered where there was a leak. As I said, these things happen. We will give 100% support to anything that brings in safety but we have to make sure that the costs are not passed on to the customer. Customers were looking for some energy relief this year but, unfortunately, they were not given it. I know it is not an election year, so maybe if there is an election coming soon, they might get that energy relief again. That is of huge importance, but safety and common sense are things we will always support inside here. I would ask that the Government give the time to sit down as a Cabinet to look at the situation that happened at Whiddy Island and to think of those 51 people who perished 47 years ago and to this day have not got justice.”
“He is not going to give up the fight, and I give him great credit for that. I also commend the local fire brigades in Kinsale and Carrigaline. There was a gas leak two weeks ago and most of Kinsale town had to be evacuated because of it, but thankfully it was all dealt with professionally by our professionals out there. I pay tribute to each one of them, as well as the gardaí and the head of the fire station in Kinsale. They are tremendous people down there and I know them well. I often meet them and talk to them. They certainly had very difficult circumstances on their hands less than two weeks ago. Thankfully, there was no fatality and nobody was hurt. It was dealt with professionally but lots of people had to be evacuated because of the dangers of the type of gas that people are dealing with.”
“Several times, I have called on this and previous Governments for a proper investigation and for an apology to the families of the 51 people who perished that night, including relations of my own. They were good, hard-working men who went out to work and never came home. It was a terrible tragedy in 1979 and it will never be forgotten. Here we are 47 years later and people might think we have forgotten in Bantry but we have not. We will always respect those people for the remainder of our lives. Surely be to God respect should be shown in here too so that families can have some kind of closure. It is something that I have called for. Michael Kingston, the head of the relatives and friends' organisation down there, has fought gallantly but has literally been ignored.”
“Safety is essential but so is common sense. Regulation must protect people, not punish them. If we want to genuinely secure Ireland’s energy future, we must stop closing doors and start planning for the needs of every community, urban and rural, and not just the few within the M50. I want to talk about safety, including in my own constituency. We saw what happened in Creeslough with the ten people who were tragically killed there. I sympathise with all their families. We also have to look at Whiddy Island. In 1979, there were 51 people killed there and the State has never apologised. We really cannot get to the bottom of what did happen on that fatal night. It is a shocking indictment.”
“Too often, decisions are made in Dublin and imposed on rural areas with no engagement, no listening and no understanding. If we are going to regulate local LPG networks, then we need to work with the people who actually run them. We need simple compliance, clear communication and fair timelines, not a box-ticking exercise designed for consultants in office blocks. Independent Ireland asks the Minister of State, Deputy Dooley, to consider bringing forward amendments on Committee Stage to ensure there is: no increase in domestic heating costs as a result of this Bill; a fair and proportionate regulatory system for class 2 LPG operators; transparency from the CRU on levies, costs and compliance impacts; a national energy security plan that includes LNG as an option; and rural-proofing of all energy legislation placed before this House.”
“I have said it before and I will say it again: rejecting LNG on ideological grounds while importing gas through longer and less secure routes makes no sense. Other small countries have diversified supply, built resilience and protected their people. Ireland instead congratulates itself on shutting doors and hoping for the best. This is not climate leadership. It is wishful thinking dressed up as strategy. Let us be realistic. We cannot electrify everything overnight. We cannot heat every rural home with heat pumps that families cannot afford and that do not work properly in older, poorly insulated buildings. Until genuine alternatives exist and are accessible, LPG and natural gas will remain essential and policy must reflect that reality instead of pretending it away. I want to talk about respect for local communities.”
“When that happens, homes go cold and rents go up, and nobody in the Government will take responsibility for that outcome. The third concern is energy security. Safety is crucial but supply matters, too. Ireland has backed itself into a corner by shutting down options before alternatives exist. We are now talking about regulating LPG at the same time as we refuse to talk honestly about where that gas will come from in ten or 20 years' time. We cannot keep pretending that interconnectors from Britain are a long-term energy strategy. They are not. They are a gamble, one that leaves our homes, our hospitals and our businesses exposed. This touches directly on the issue of LNG, and in particular Shannon LNG.”
“Every time the CRU gets a new function, and every time there is a new permit, a new levy, a new licence or a new compliance burden, it eventually lands on the bill of the ordinary customer, it lands on the pensioner filling their bulk tank, it lands on the working family paying for LPG cylinders, and it lands on the landlord in rural Cork trying to keep an old apartment block heated. If we are not honest about that in this House, then we are doing a disservice to those people. The second concern is fairness. A class 2 LPG operator running a handful of residential connections in a rural estate is not the same as a national gas transmission operator. We cannot and should not regulate them as if they were. We need clear guarantees that the regulatory burden will not choke small operators or force estates to abandon LPG networks entirely.”
“The Bill seeks to introduce two classes of LPG licence and replace the informal safety case system with a statutory safety permit system. It gives the CRU more tools with which to investigate incidents and to intervene when it must. Those elements are reasonable, and Independent Ireland supports the principle of regulating for safety. There are some very real concerns, however, and I want to speak plainly about them. First is the cost. We are told again that there will be no cost to the Exchequer. What we are not told is who will actually pay.”
“What is there instead is reliance, in places, on LPG, on bottled gas, on bulk tanks and on small networks serving estates and apartment blocks that were built outside the reach of the great Dublin-centric energy map. We learned from an investigation by the CRU that dozens of small LPG networks were operating without any proper regulatory cover, not out of neglect or intent, but because the law simply did not recognise them. Developers, management companies and volunteers found themselves supplying gas without a licensing system designed for their scale. That was a gap in the law and a safety risk, and it needed to be addressed. In that respect, bringing these networks into a proper licensing and safety structure makes sense. Families deserve peace of mind. They deserve clarity on who is responsible when something goes wrong.”
“I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on this Bill today. Let me state from the outset that safety must always come first. Every family, every worker and every pensioner has a right to know that the fuel heating their homes and cooking their dinners is safe, properly regulated and overseen by a system that is fit for purpose. Safety cannot, however, become a convenient excuse for forgetting rural Ireland or for piling more paperwork, fees and levies onto small operators and local communities who already struggle to stay afloat. This Bill deals with both natural gas and LPG. In urban areas, the gas grid is taken for granted but in much of rural Ireland, there is no gas grid, there are no pipelines and there are no grand plans.”
“This will be the third time I ask it, between the Taoiseach and Ministers. Will Barry Andrews of Fianna Fáil, Regina Doherty of Fine Gael and Seán Kelly of Fine Gael vote for Mercosur? Is the Government going to apply the whip? In fairness, the Government came out last week with its position. There was a bit of a struggle but we got there. This is the third time I have asked this question and nobody on the other side of the House can answer it. Is the Government going to apply the whip? Are they backing Ursula or are they backing Ireland? That is what we are asking. It is a straight-up question and I want a straight-up answer. I would really appreciate an answer from the Minister of State. This is the third time I have asked.”
“I am going to be like a twin brother to Deputy Healy-Rae because I have very similar questions. The Minister will know, and I have said already, the International Council for Exploration of the Sea has just recommended a cut to the fishing quota, with 174,357 tonnes for 2026. That is a 70% drop from 576,958 tonnes last year. What we want to know is whether the Irish Government is taking a legal challenge. Is the Government going to stand up on behalf of the Irish fishermen and take a legal challenge? Has it met President Ursula von der Leyen to address the failure of the Hague preferences, and where is it at in this present time? A legal challenge is the only way and mechanism we have and the Hague preferences are there. I have a question for the Minister of State regarding Mercosur.”
“Thanks to the failure to apply our Hague preferences Ireland's quota plummets from 39,914 tonnes to just 10,907 tonnes with an economic hit of about €48 million. With blue whiting, ICES is calling for a 41% cut yet we are watching others profit from our waters. Has the Minister of State proposed a meeting with President von der Leyen to address the failure of Hague preferences, the EU fisheries Commission and the protection of these stocks? They are systematic failures not minor errors. Ireland must fight back, launch a legal challenge and stand up for the big five corporations. Our fishermen deserve better. I have another question on Mercosur that will take two seconds. Are MEPs Barry Andrews, Regina Doherty and Seán Kelly going to be whipped to vote no to Mercosur or are they backing the Ursula deal?”
“I would like to be able to give my time to Mercosur but time is tight and another dirty deal has been done in Europe, at the expense of Irish fishermen. The mackerel quota and the whitefish haddock quota has been pretty much wiped out and it is an absolute disaster for Ireland's coastal communities. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea has recommended a cut to just 174,357 tonnes for 2026. That is a 70% drop from 576,958 tonnes last year. Despite that, Norway, the UK, the Faeroe Islands and Iceland have secured a combined total allowable catch of 299,000 tonnes, which is nearly double the scientific advice, while our fleet is being wiped out. While foreign supertrawlers come into Irish waters and take all our fish our lads are on the sidelines.”
“Our Independent Ireland MEP, Ciaran Mullooly, has been in Brussels since Sunday lobbying fellow MEPs from Italy and other countries to vote "No". It is alarming that three MEPs out of 14 in Ireland are saying they are going to vote in favour of the Mercosur deal. Can the Taoiseach tell me today that the Government will apply the whip to MEPs Barry Andrews, Seán Kelly and Regina Doherty to have them vote against the Mercosur deal in the same way that it has?”
“I welcome the fact that the Irish Government has, on behalf of its people, voted against the Mercosur trade deal. This deal will open the floodgates to Brazilian beef produced to standards far below what we demand here and contaminated with banned growth hormones and antibiotics, as exposed by the Irish Farmers Journal . Our farmers, who uphold the highest food safety and animal welfare standards, will face devastating losses in the beef and poultry sectors. Rural Ireland cannot be sacrificed for cheap imports that undermine public health and destroy livelihoods. The Government needs to keep sending a clear message that we stand with Irish farmers and for quality. In the next few weeks, each MEP in Europe will have a vote for or against the Mercosur deal.”
“Lord God, there is something wrong with the system across the line there. The Government has to understand people are damn right to be frustrated. We are not here making up stories. Everyone here has a sad stories, and Government Deputies do too. They are in the same situation as me. They surely do not get the answers because we do not see the works being carried out. I am for accountability and communication at the very least.”
“They are in the same situation. We have a representative there, Anna Marie O'Sullivan Cronin. Raw sewage is leaking into the clean waters there. It is a scandal beyond words and Uisce Éireann is let get away with it time and again. The Minister of State's amendment is supporting that. It will make sure Uisce Éireann is protected and will not be held accountable. All we want is communication and accountability and I do not see either in the Minister of State's reply. It is a kick-the-can-down-the-road operation to protect Uisce Eireann. We will give it the billions it wants but it does not have to be accountable for one brown cent. It does not have to answer to a local council or the Deputy in that area. It is a case of Uisce Eireann doing what it wants and asking it how much it wants and then we pump that to it and walk away.”
“What will I tell the people of Ballydehob? They have had raw sewage pumping into their waters for 17 years. This is a crisis we have from one town to another. I should not be using west Cork but it is a prime example for Ireland. We have seen one television programme after another explaining that to us. We have seen fines for Uisce Éireann for €20 million because it cannot meet its leak targets. The EPA only fines it once a year. We do not want any fines. I am not encouraging the EPA. However, if the EPA knew there was a farmer breaking the rule for one week the business would be closed down, there would be massive fines and court appearances. That is the way it works in this country. We come down on the ordinary person but Uisce Éireann can break every rule and guideline throughout the country. What about the people of Ballingeary?”
“They have been promised a bit of an auld kiss the ass job now - excuse me, Ceann Comhairle, there are ladies present. We need proper infrastructure so people can build houses in Dunmanway, which they cannot currently. It is scandalous. The Minister of State is nodding but I have no problem in the wide earthly world, if he has time, to take him around to every one of those communities because I am not making it up. In 1999 I worked with my local community in Goleen to put in a new sewerage system. It is pumping raw sewage into the clean water of Goleen still. If people want to build a few extra houses when the county development plan comes up the answer will be "No". This will be the greatest excuse to have no development anywhere. The wastewater tanks are full. They are at capacity so we cannot build and cannot do anything.”
“There could be ten more but I know of five, though the EPA could only find three throughout the country. That tells you the EPA is not fit for purpose. Uisce Éireann will not be fit for purpose until the Minister of State sits up and sees what can be done. How can Councillor Daniel Sexton tell the people of Rosscarbery it will be fine and that when they are swimming again next summer they could be drinking a bit of raw sewage? That is what they were doing. That is an astonishing situation to find ourselves in year after year. The people of Rosscarbery hold meeting after meeting, and rightly so. They are rightly annoyed at public representatives and ask why this issue cannot be resolved. What is Councillor Daniel Sexton going to say to the people of Dunmanway?”
“Councillor Daniel Sexton had a motion in December calling for the council to write to the Environmental Protection Agency to request it uses its full enforcement powers to compel Uisce Éireann to develop and implement an expedited action plan to end the sewage overflow and remediate the contamination of the park and the River Argideen. Imagine that leaking into the river water the people of Clonakilty are drinking, with the EPA fining Uisce Éireann on only 28 occasions. It is all a scam between the EPA and Uisce Éireann. It cannot be anything else. In 2024, it fined three communities: one in Clare, one in Macroom and the other in Shannonvale. That is three but there are five in west Cork pumping raw sewage into the clean waters that I know of.”
“They have raw sewage bleeding out of the bloody tanks into a local community ground that was given to the community. This has been going on for 27 or 28 years. Uisce Éireann got fined last year because the EPA decided to wake up one year out of the 28. Imagine that they also were without water over Christmas. How many breaks in water supply have the people of Shannonvale and Ballinascarty had? All they are being fed is, "We will have a public meeting and we will talk about it." It sounds good and it is all pats on the back stuff, but it is all a whole load of nonsense.”
“If a child came up with that, honest to God you would have to teach him a small bit of lessons. Until the issue is resolved in Castletownbere people cannot get planning permission. Young people who want to get off and get a start in their lives and in their communities are being ruined by Uisce Éireann. This is being aided and abetted by this Government. This is what it boils down to. If the Government is just going to stand by, what can Councillor Danny Collins tell the people in Kealkill who want to build in their community but cannot do so because the wastewater treatment plant there is at capacity? They cannot build. That is that for them. Park the business. We move then to Councillor Daniel Sexton of Independent Ireland. What can he do for the people of Shannonvale and Ballinascarty who have no water?”
“Again, there was no accountability, no reply, no indication of when that is going to be resolved, with no date or anything given to the local community. There is nothing other than Uisce Éireann is sympathetic and there was a dry summer and there is wet weather and all this nonsensical rubbish that comes back to us. In Castletownbere they are talking about bringing in water. I heard Deputy Healy-Rae talking about bringing water from Shannon to Kenmare a while ago. Talk about the nonsense that we have to listen to in this world. They are talking about bringing water to Castletownbere from Inniscarra. In the name of God almighty are they out of their minds? Are these people out of their minds? Is someone in China making these decisions? Certainly no one in Ireland could even come up with that.”
“Uisce Éireann will be funded with €16.9 billion and instead of supporting this motion and moving it in the right direction the Minister of State is putting in an amendment just to take it off the rails, but we will not accept that amendment as such. I will name a few of the issues that we have down in my own constituency. How many more have spoken today about their own constituencies and the crises that they are in? Councillor Danny Collins represents the Bantry-Schull-Castletownbere electoral area. In the Beach Road area 1.5 km of pipe has needed to be replaced for the last number of years. There were 70 breaks in that local community. I mentioned Adrigole several times today. There were 15 breaks, with one over Christmas.”
“Why in the name of God is there nothing built into that funding to make sure there is going to be accountability and communication? I am going to another public meeting this weekend back down in Adrigole in west Cork. I went to one two months ago also. I am no further ahead today than I was two months ago. We have a Minister of State going to that meeting as well. He might have some progress for us. Certainly we were all to work together and yet we have got no further with the action group. We were without water over Christmas. The area was 15 times without water, including over Christmas. It is not a joke. It is being dealt with like a joke by Uisce Éireann. It gives us a generic reply but that is not accountability. That is not communication. It is a disgrace. That is what it is, pure and simple.”
“Our motion demands enforceable timelines, transparent schedules, community engagement, and performance-linked funding. The Government's amendment offers none of that. It offers words, not guarantees. For far too long people have endured broken promises and short-term fixes. Today we can end that cycle. I ask the Minister of State to support this motion and stop putting in an amendment to try to mess it up and kick the can down the road. He should send a clear message that accountability in water services is not optional; it is essential. That is what I am asking in the motion and this is what Deputy O'Flynn has spoken about. From 2025 to 2029 it is expected that this Government will be giving at least €16.9 billion to Irish Water.”
“We highlight repeated failures while they cite progress. We criticise centralisation while they defend it. We warn of environmental risk but they talk about future improvements. We call leakage a crisis and they say it is improving. Let us deal in facts. In November 2025 the Commission for Regulation of Utilities fined Uisce Éireann €20 million for failing to meet leakage reduction targets. It saved 90 million litres instead of the 176 million litres required. That is not progress. That is a failure with a penalty. Yet, in the same year the Exchequer allocated over €2.2 billion to Uisce Éireann. Communities like Adrigole, Shannonvale, Ballydehob, Goleen, Rosscarbery and Dunmanway still face outages, sewage spills and planning bans. Funding without accountability is not delivery; it is drift.”
“As the Minister of State heard from each and every person who made a contribution here, accountability and communication are a massive issue with Uisce Éireann. That is the message that must go back from here. I know that People Before Profit had issues, as expressed by Deputy Boyd Barrett, but I do not see any amendment from its Deputies to this motion. They could have put in amendments. Anyway, that is another story and that is their choice. Looking at the Government's amendment, one would wonder whether we are even talking about the same issue. Our motion describes infrastructure failure. The amendment avoids that reality and instead lists the scale of operations. We say that delays block housing and economic activity while they claim investment will support housing delivery, as if no delays exist.”
“Dunmanway should not be left counting the years to 2032 while a generation gives up on building homes. This House has the power to change that. By supporting this motion, we move from promises to proof, from press releases to published schedules and from "we will revert" to "we will deliver". We will put timelines into law, transparency into operation and performance into funding. We will bring local voices into rooms and ensure that when things go wrong, there is a number to call and someone on the other end.”
“Repeated emergency calls burn resources that would be better spent on permanent renewal. Stalled housing imposes fiscal and social costs while pollution triggers remediation, institutional damage and legal liability. The choice is not spend now or save later. The real choice is between planned investment with accountability and unplanned crisis spending without end. Communities in west Cork and Ireland are not asking for luxuries. They are asking for the basics - safe water, reliable wastewater treatment plants, timely repairs and credible plans that they can see and trust. Adrigole should not be left counting its 14th outage, Shannonvale should not be left counting its 26-year problem, Ballydehob should not be left counting 17 years and Goleen should not be left counting 26 years. They should not be left counting the species at risk.”
“We cannot get a straight answer for a firm date from Uisce Éireann for Rosscarbery, where raw sewage is going into the water, or Dunmanway, where we see growth capped by capacity and spills. When Shannonvale sees another workshop instead of a works crew, that is a failure of accountability as much as it is a failure of engineering. Local government, public representatives and community groups need structured statutory roles in signalling affairs, setting priorities and monitoring delivery. If we treat community feedback as an obstacle rather than an early warning system, we will keep learning the same lessons at an ever greater cost. There is a myth that delay is cheaper. It is not. Chronic leakage and waste-treated drinking water inflate operational costs.”
“We did our best to bring people from all over the world to the council in 1999 to try to resolve the crisis and here we are 2026 in the same situation. Raw sewage is still pouring into the river but the EPA turns a blind eye because it is Uisce Éireann. If a farmer was pouring sewage into clean rivers, there would be a national crisis and he would be put out of business within a few weeks so there are double standards here. I would like to know why the EPA is aiding and abetting Uisce Éireann's shocking record by not going after it and making it accountable. There were three fines in 2024 - three fines in Ireland. There are six communities where raw sewage is going into clean waters in west Cork alone so what the name of God is the EPA doing? It is sound asleep at the wheel and is aiding and abetting this carry on.”
“An enforceable timetable and transparent reporting would turn "we are working on it" into a clear milestone with consequences for slippage. Look at public confidence. Shannonvale has endured a 26-year ordeal culminating in a prosecution and a fine but fines without fixes do not restore a park, clean a river or reassure a parent. Only delivery does that. Our motion turns accountability into action with deadlines, schedules, engagement, alternative routes and funding that follows performance. Centralisation was supposed to standardise excellence. Instead too often it has standardised silence. When the people of Adrigole or Goleen, who have been waiting 26 years with raw sewage going into the river, cannot get a straight answer or a firm date, it is astonishing. I am in the community voluntary group there.”
“Take the housing emergency. Dunmanway today is the sharp edge of a national problem. Wastewater plants are at over capacity and were leaking, blocking permissions in towns and villages across the country. In Dunmanway alone, we have seen developments cancelled and young couples told to wait nine, ten or 12 years before they can build near family, jobs and schools. Without a statutory timeline and alternative delivery routes, we consign entire communities to stagnation Consider environmental protection. Ballydehob's proximity to a special area of conservation means that repeated discharges are not just local nuisances; they are threatening habitats and biodiversity protected under EU law. Delay multiplies risk.”
“Where Uisce Éireann cannot provide capacity in a reasonable timeframe, we need a regulated path for public, private or developer-led delivery with domestic regulatory approval and public ownership or control of strategic assets. This is not ideology. It is urgency. We want performance linked to funding - the elements of capital allocation to timely delivery, leakage reduction, repair, compliance, resilience and environmental performance. We need to reward what works and stop paying indefinitely for what does not. We need deadlines. Focused delivery and transparency build trust, engagement prevents conflict and performance links funding and aligns incentives with outcomes. If these principles are standards in transport, health capital and even private utility regulation, they must be standard in water and wastewater too.”
“Wastewater plant network upgrades and strategic leakage reductions must be delivered to published timelines with transparent annual reporting to this House and progress delays and compliance. We want to reform regulatory oversight with timely public reporting. Verified discharges and serious non-compliance events should trigger prompt public reporting and escalation. Communities should not learn about failures from social media. We want national capacity and a delivery map. A live national map should be published identifying constraints, priorities and timelines. Housing cannot be planned on hope. Councils and communities need hard data to activate zoned lands. We want alternative regulated delivery routes.”
“Uisce Éireann must publish repair and replacement schedules for affected areas with dates, scope and interim measures so people know what is coming and with no more opaque timelines and no more "we will revert". We want formal community engagement for persistent failure. If private developers are obliged to consult in preplanning then a semi-State body should be obliged to engage with communities facing repeated failures before and not after the next outage. We want a functioning escalation channel for public representatives. When a school has to close, a plant overflows or a village green is flooded with sewage, there must be a live line and a mandated escalation path to a responsible decision-maker with authority to act. We want binding delivery schedules and annual Oireachtas reporting.”
“These are symptoms of a system that responds slowly, communicates poorly and plans without enforceable obligations to deliver. Our motion responds with the practical enforceable measures. We want statutory repair timelines. When a wastewater leak or discharge is detected, mitigation must begin within one month with a defined and enforceable timeframe to deliver permanent repair or an improved interim solution. Communities like Shannonvale cannot endure year after year of workshop purgatory. We want binding replacement schedules for chronic mains failures. Where bursts are repeated, their default must be full mains renewal and not another patch over of an asbestos or legacy pipe that is certain to fail again as Adrigole has shown. We want transparent public schedules.”
“Community petitions have sought urgent action yet the upgrade remains stuck in a long queue while biodiversity and community development bear the cost. Across the towns of Goleen, Rosscarbery and Dunmanway, the theme is the same - no meaningful investment, rising environmental risk and growth stalled by infrastructure that is either at capacity or failing. In Dunmanway in particular, the wastewater treatment plant is operating at capacity and has overloaded imposing effective planning bans. That means young families cannot get permission to build homes in their own town. We are told proper relief may not come until 2032. A temporary job may be done just to seal up some modes but for a generation trying to put down roots, 2032 is not a plan; it is a lock on the door.”
“Despite community action and repeated representation, transparency and timelines have been elusive. In 2025, Uisce Éireann was prosecuted by the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, and fined in the District Court for breaches at Shannonvale Park, yet the core project still lacks a clear, funded and time-bound solution. Workshops are convened, cancelled and reconvened. Designs are approved and then sent back to the drawing board. It is a case study in institutional drift, with real environmental and public health consequences. For a decade, untreated or poorly treated wastewater has repeatedly threatened Ballydehob Bay, part of the Roaringwater Bay and islands special area of conservation under the EU habitats directive. I raised the case in this House.”
“Since last July, Adrigole in the Beara Peninsula has suffered up to 14 water outages, cutting off farms, schools and crèches for days at a time. One outage led to closures. Others forced families with small babies to move out temporarily. A critical asbestos pipe along the Healy Pass needs replacement, yet crews have been out again and again for short-term fixes, sometimes for two weeks at a time, rather than replacing the failing section. People there rightly ask why a Dublin burst is addressed in hours, while Adrigole waits and waits. That is the definition of unequal services. Over Christmas, they had yet another water outage, making it 15 since last July. Shannonvale, near Clonakilty, has endured a 26-year saga of sewage flooding a village green, which was a community field, and contaminating a local playground.”
“It shows up in the starkest terms in west Cork, where communities have waited not for months, but for years, and decades in some cases, for basic, permanent fixes. This is not a funding footnote or a scheduling slip. It is a systemic problem of delivery, accountability and transparency. Uisce Éireann has repeatedly failed to meet performance standards on leakage reduction, network renewal, upgrade delivery and system resilience, while too many communities face chronic outages, repeated bursts and wastewater incidents with no certainty as to when permanent solutions will be delivered. Our motion is rooted in the lived experiences we have brought to the House again and again. Allow me to set out a few of the worst affected places in Cork South-West. This is a national picture but I will give it closer to home at the moment.”
“Our motion speaks to a truth. Too many communities in Ireland already know that our public water and wastewater systems are not just creaking, but they are failing, and those failures are costing us homes, health, habitats and hope. A significant portion of our infrastructure is leaking, overloaded, obsolete or non-compliant. That reality shows up as boil water notices, service interruptions, supply restrictions and raw or partially treated sewage discharges into our rivers and coastal waters. It shows up as stalled housing schemes, planning refusals and shuttered community amenities. It shows up in the daily lives of families who cannot rely on a glass of safe water from the tap.”
“I move: That Dáil Éireann: acknowledges that: — a significant proportion of the State's public drinking water and wastewater infrastructure remains leaking, overloaded, obsolete or non-compliant, resulting in boil water notices, service interruptions, supply restrictions and untreated or partially treated wastewater discharges; — persistent delays in the delivery, repair and replacement of water and wastewater infrastructure have created direct blockages to housing delivery, public health protection, economic activity and environmental compliance; — Uisce Éireann has repeatedly failed to meet expected performance standards in leakage reduction, network renewal, upgrade delivery and system resilience, while many communities continue to endure chronic outages, repeated pipe failures and wastewater incidents; — existing statutory and regulatory frameworks do not impose clear and enforceable repair or replacement timelines on Uisce Éireann following the detection of leaks, bursts or wastewater failures; — communities affected by repeated infrastructure failures currently have no guaranteed consultation process, no published delivery schedule and no certainty as to whether or when permanent solutions will be delivered; and — the centralisation of water services has weakened local accountability, reduced responsiveness to community-level failures and contributed to slow and opaque decision-making on urgent infrastructure needs; notes that: — prolonged discharges of raw or partially treated wastewater into rivers, coastal waters and sensitive catchments represent an ongoing risk to public health and environmental quality and undermine confidence in national infrastructure governance; — large volumes of treated drinking water continue to be lost through chronic leakage, placing avoidable pressure on treatment capacity and increasing operational costs; — repeated short-term repairs without full pipe replacement have resulted in cycles of failure in many towns, villages and urban neighbourhoods, leaving residents without confidence in the reliability of public water supply; — the absence of statutory repair deadlines has allowed wastewater leaks and discharges to persist for extended periods without guaranteed interim mitigation or permanent remediation; — delays in water and wastewater capacity upgrades have directly impeded housing delivery, public services, tourism and enterprise development, despite lands being zoned and planning permission granted; and — the current model provides no structured mechanism for early engagement with communities experiencing persistent failures, unlike the pre-planning consultation processes required for private development; and calls on the Government to: — legislate for mandatory statutory timelines, requiring Uisce Éireann to commence mitigation works for wastewater leaks or discharges within one month of detection and to complete permanent repairs or provide an approved interim solution within a defined and enforceable period thereafter; — require Uisce Éireann to establish binding replacement timelines for water mains in communities experiencing repeated bursts or chronic leakage, including full pipe renewal rather than recurring temporary repairs; — place a statutory obligation on Uisce Éireann to publish repair and replacement schedules for affected communities, including clear dates, scope of works and interim measures; — require Uisce Éireann to introduce a formal community engagement process, comparable to pre-planning consultation, in areas experiencing persistent water or wastewater failures, ensuring residents and local authorities are informed in advance of proposed works, timelines and expected outcomes; — require Uisce Éireann to operate a properly functioning communication line and escalation channel for public representatives, to allow timely resolution of issues, clear status updates and improved accountability; — establish binding delivery schedules for wastewater treatment plants, network upgrades and strategic leakage-reduction programmes, with annual reporting to the Houses of the Oireachtas on progress, delays and compliance; — reform regulatory oversight so that verified wastewater discharges and serious non-compliance events are reported publicly in a timely and transparent manner, with escalation mechanisms where failures persist; — require Uisce Éireann to publish a national infrastructure capacity and delivery map identifying constraints, upgrade priorities and timelines to support housing activation and public infrastructure planning; — allow a regulated alternative delivery route for essential water and wastewater projects where Uisce Éireann cannot provide capacity within a reasonable timeframe, using approved public/private or developer-led models, subject to domestic regulatory approval and public ownership or control of strategic water assets; and — establish a performance-linked funding framework for Uisce Éireann and relevant agencies, tying elements of capital allocation to timely delivery, leakage reduction, repair compliance, infrastructure resilience and environmental performance.”