"Green" policies are destroying this country

Damn the man!

You'll be happy to note the EPA are also going after Irish Water

A few dozen cases against farmers might motivate some to act a bit quicker, surely you'd support that, if only to avoid double standards

Actually, based on the rate of 5 times more sites being impacted by agri, you'd be looking at around 140 cases for it to be balanced.

A quick look at the EPA prosecutions page shows barely any cases taken against the agri sector

Here's a summary of the 2023 cases as an example

2023 - 19 cases total

• 10 - Uisce Eireann
• 4 - Rubbish companies
• 2 - County councils
• 1 - Unlicensed peat operator
• 1 - Commercial company
• 1 - Agri sector company

You're spot on with your double standards comment it seems, though not in the way you meant I think

Sewage treatment plants take around 6-8 years from conception to completion. Irish water were handed the responsibility of sorting out a century of underinvestment by the councils in a reasonable time whilst also sorting out the drinking water network. Some bright spark removed their financing model on day one.

It would be highly counterproductive to fine Irish Water whilst in the middle of correcting all of these systemic issues. They are trearging the works on a highest priority basis which means that drinking water is sucking up the bulk of the limited capitol for the foreseeable future.

Reality bites.

The difference with farmers is that if they are chronically polluting by excess slurry or fertilizer this is a behavioural issue which can be addess with a change of practice and fines for recalcitrant individuals.

It is not possible to resolve all urban sewage treatment plants instantly especially when you are at the beck and call of central government for your financing.

Farming is the biggest source of water pollution and it has gotten worse as dairy intensified across the south.

It's not unreasonable to ask the biggest pollutor to sort it's house out.

I used to work for Irish Water on a Water treatment plant upgrade. This was a drinking water project.

It took around 10 years of planning from first conception to breaking ground, I was also witness to the council paperwork that had to be carried out to ensure environmental compliance with legislation. The planning stage involved two councils cooperating on the extraction point since the lake source was covered by two counties. So outline design stage and environmental impact assessments needed to be carried out before it could go forward to final design stage. This was put out to tender and Irish Water chose the best of three proposals. Two contractors got the works and from final approval to completion took three years. Around 13 years for a relatively simple upgrade to an existing plant and final bill was around 3 million.

Most of the projects for urban sewage treatment are many times larger and more complex - the environmental compliance is significantly more involved often covering multiple councils and agencies. If at any point objections come in you can add at least a year to the project. Costs will run into 10s of millions of Euros.

How long has Irish Water been in existence ? Around a decade with around a third of that been taken up with establishing the body from a standing start. Priority for works was obviously given to Drinking water treatment and an extensive program of leak fixing because their were significant health issues at stake and cost savings were available.

So I think, given the scale of the task, the difficulty of financing caused by the removal of water charges, Irish Water has done a fantastic job so far - and will resolve the issues of urban waste water when it is physically possible to do so.

As has been pointed out, it would be counterproductive to fine Irish Water for legacy issues it had no control over. It would also mean there were less resources to finance the upgrade program it is undertaking.

This crisis exists because the councils put all this on the long finger - mainly because of the funding model which operates within the state, ie they had to go cap in hand to the government for major capitol works which the government gave a low priority to.

Rome wasn't built in a day and the issues caused by systemic underinvestment won't be solved overnight. Irish water is the solution.

Take it up with the FFG boys.