Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

One of my greatest frustrations with Irish Water is the difficulty in accessing information or getting a response to representations. I am aware this is a major source of frustration for my constituents also. It was particularly an issue in the aftermath of Storm Éowyn, when very little information was provided by phone or email on disruptions to water supply. In recent weeks, I have been getting responses to representations that I made in the week following the storm. A response is not much good to me or my constituents one or two months on from the storm. It is totally unacceptable for a public body to be uncontactable by public representatives.

During the storm, the town of Athenry in my constituency had no water supply. In the aftermath, requests for a water tanker in Athenry were ignored and not responded to. That a town of 5,000 people was left without any water whatsoever and no explanation was utterly unacceptable. I ask that the Government and Irish Water act on these failures of communication. In particular, I ask that backup generators be put in place at pump houses to prevent a repeat of the outages.

I want to raise the failure to invest in upgrading wastewater infrastructure in towns and villages across my constituency. Funding has been allocated for projects in Craughwell and Clarinbridge but we are told it will be years before upgrades are complete. There are many other towns and villages in Galway, such as Abbeyknockmoy, Ardrahan and Corofin, that do not have adequate wastewater infrastructure. The Government has no plans to invest to address the lack of wastewater infrastructure in these areas. This failure to deliver infrastructure is stalling housing development in the towns and villages. The Government is missing its housing targets and we are nowhere near the 40,000 units promised last year. The failure to invest in the infrastructure is one of the key reasons for this. If the Government is not willing to invest in wastewater infrastructure, it is not serious about tackling the housing crisis, certainly in my constituency. We need investment in infrastructure in towns and villages across County Galway and the rest of the State. I ask that the Government act by providing investment and accelerating the delivery of projects if it is really serious about tackling the housing crisis.

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