The following motion was moved by Deputy Michael Collins on Wednesday, 14 January 2026:
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.
Debate resumed on amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:
"notes that:
— the Government's vision for water services is set out in the Water Services Policy Statement 2024 to 2030 (February 2024), which sets out three main objectives; availability and reliability, safety and quality and sustainability, along with a series of related priorities for water services delivery in the period to 2030, and beyond;
— the Government's Water Sector Transformation Policy Paper (February 2021) further sets the vision for water services based on the full integration of water services provided by 31 local authorities into one national authority;
— the objective is to deliver a world-class public water services authority that meets customer needs, operates in line with best practice, represents value for money, and facilitates economic development in urban and rural locations;
— Uisce Éireann is the national utility for drinking water and wastewater services;
— Uisce Éireann manage and operate some 700 water treatment plants, 1,000 wastewater treatment plants and over 4,000 water and wastewater pumping stations;
— Uisce Éireann oversees over 65,000 kilometres (km) of water pipes and over 26,000 km of public sewers all processing roughly 3 billion litres of water and wastewater every day;
— all of these assets and all of this activity is dedicated to delivering vital services to almost two million homes and business premises;
— Uisce Éireann supplies drinking water to over 80 per cent of the population, 10 per cent of households get their drinking water from private wells while the remaining 6 per cent of households have their drinking water supplied by group schemes;
— in relation to wastewater, two thirds of households are connected to public wastewater services provided by Uisce Éireann, with virtually all of the remaining one third of households disposing of wastewater using septic tanks;
— Uisce Éireann's Board has responsibility for ensuring that the company delivers on its mandate and properly accounts for the financial resources made available to it;
— Uisce Éireann is subject to economic regulation by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, that provides a constraint over the funding while monitoring performance and providing a complaints resolution service to customers; and
— Uisce Éireann is subject to a dual audit by the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General and commercial auditors along with being accountable to the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee;
further notes that:
— Uisce Éireann consistently meets high standards in the supply of drinking water, with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) noting in its most recent report in 2024, that 99.8 per cent of drinking water supplies meet all relevant standards, confirming that water provided by Uisce Éireann is safe to drink and that the EPA is providing robust regulatory oversight of Uisce Éireann when issues do arise;
— Uisce Éireann has completed new wastewater infrastructure for 135 towns and villages, including the elimination of raw sewage discharges from 15 towns and villages;
— urban wastewater is fourth in terms of sectoral pressure on water bodies behind agriculture, hydromorphology and forestry;
— in the past 11 years, Uisce Éireann has ramped up capital delivery for water services and infrastructure from €300 million in 2014 to roughly €1.3 billion in 2025;
— finding and fixing leaks is difficult and resource intensive work, but investment by Uisce Éireann of €2 billion over the last ten years has meant that Uisce Éireann has made significant progress and reduced leakage nationally from 48 per cent to 36 per cent; and
— Uisce Éireann has advanced major projects in water supply and wastewater treatment notably the Water Supply Project – Eastern and Midlands Region and the Greater Dublin Drainage Project that will be transformational and two of the biggest infrastructure projects in the history of the State; and
highlights that:
— the Government is delivering a sustainable funding path to further enhance the ongoing significant improvements in our public water and wastewater services;
— under the revised National Development Plan (NDP), the Government has scaled up support for the water sector with a record allocation of €12.2 billion in funding out to 2030;
— Uisce Éireann will be allocated 95 per cent or €11.7 billion of the NDP funding over the next five years to support the delivery of a wide range of projects in our cities and regions required for housing delivery, safeguarding public health and the environment;
— crucially, the delivery of the additional water services under the NDP will enable the capacity required for our new housing targets;
— Uisce Éireann will implement a large national growth programme along with an enhanced Small Towns and Villages Growth Programme, to support our housing delivery for our urban and rural communities; and
— only a national authority, backed by strong Government investment in water infrastructure, will deliver the standard of water and wastewater networks and environmental management systems required by Irish citizens and consumers in the 21st century.".
(Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage)
I must now deal with a postponed division relating to the motion regarding Uisce Éireann infrastructure delivery, accountability and repair timelines. On Wednesday, 14 January 2026, on the question "That the amendment to the motion be agreed to", a division was claimed and in accordance with Standing Order 85(2), that division must be taken now.
Amendment put:
The Dáil divided: Tá, 85; Níl, 70; Staon, 0.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Mary Butler and Emer Currie; Níl, Deputies Michael Collins and Ken O'Flynn.
Amendment declared carried.
Question put: "That the motion, as amended, be agreed to.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 85; Níl, 70; Staon, 0.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Mary Butler and Emer Currie; Níl, Deputies Michael Collins and Ken O'Flynn.
Question declared carried.
Cuireadh an Dáil ar athló ar 8.05 p.m. go dtí 8.47 a.m., Déardaoin, an 15 Eanáir 2026.
The Dáil adjourned at 8.05 p.m. until 8.47 a.m. on Thursday, 15 January 2026.