Irish Water Seeks Public Feedback For Eastern and Midlands Region

Irish Water seeks public feedback on its draft and regional water resources.

Irish Water will begin a three month public consultation on the draft which sets out the options for providing a more secure, reliable and sustainable water supply for 2.5 million customers in this region over the next 25 years.

Irish Water seeks public feedback on its draft Regional Water Resources Plan for the Eastern and Midlands Region.

The statutory public consultation runs from 14 December 2021 to 14 March 2022.

It will assess the needs within the 134 public water supplies in the region in terms of quality, quantity, reliability and sustainability.

It aims to provide a strategic transformation from the existing fragmented supply to a more resilient and sustainable interconnected supply.

The identified solutions will support growth and economic development across the Eastern and Midlands Region

Reducing leakage in the regions from the existing baseline of 38% of regional demand to less than 22% of regional demand.

The National Plan will also provide a transparent roadmap for how Irish Water will plan for its water assets in order to align with national policy.

Each Regional Plan will be subject to its own consultation and, once adopted, all of the Regional Plans and the Framework Plan will be treated as a unified National Plan. The first regional plan to be developed is the draft Regional Plan   

There are 201 Water Treatment Plants (WTPs) in the Eastern and Midlands Region, which collectively serve 2.48 million people or 60% of the population of Ireland, via approximately 19,000 kilometres of distribution network and 134 Water Resource Zones.  

These treatment plants also serve 76,000 businesses. 

The region itself covers approximately 20,900 square kilometres extending from the Shannon Estuary in the south west, towards the large River Boyne catchment and Greater Dublin Area (GDA) in the north east.

The public consultation will allow Irish water to consider local options to resolve these needs and larger regional options that can address multiple supplies.

The preferred options from the draft plan include:

• Reducing the number of Water Resource Zones (WRZ) in the Eastern and Midlands Region from 134 to 93 and developing larger interconnected WRZs for the urban areas in the region.  This will allow a move away from a fragmented supply, with large variations in levels of service, to an interconnected supply with better outcomes for all water users.
• Upgrades to 136 existing water treatment plants, in terms of quantity and quality performance.
• Development of four new water treatment plants (WTPs).
• Proposed decommissioning 66 WTPs.
• Interconnecting 50 supplies via 860 kilometres of trunk mains.
• Reducing leakage from the current level of 38% of regional demand to less than 22% of regional demand by 2033. This represents a 45% reduction in leakage from 2019 to 2034. This will be achieved through find and fix, pressure management, active leakage control and asset replacement.

Some of the outcomes and benefits of this regional preferred approach include improved performance across all water supplies in terms of quality, quantity which will result in less frequent interruptions to supply and fewer boil water.

Irish Water are now seeking feedback on the public consultation for the draft  which can be found here. 

A thirteen-week statutory public consultation will run from the 14 December 2021 to 14 March 2022.

Submissions can be made by post or email by 14 March 20.