{"id":200561,"date":"2025-11-26T04:13:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T04:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/200561\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T04:13:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T04:13:14","slug":"regulators-back-e13-6bn-uisce-eireann-spend-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/200561\/","title":{"rendered":"Regulators back \u20ac13.6bn Uisce \u00c9ireann spend \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Regulators are poised to back State water company Uisce \u00c9ireann\u2019s plans <\/a>to spend almost \u20ac14 billion on tackling an infrastructure squeeze seen as critical to new home building.<\/p>\n

The water company has asked the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities<\/a> (CRU) for the go-ahead to spend \u20ac13.8 billion on more than 200 water treatment and waste plants among other projects from this year to 2029.<\/p>\n

A CRU draft ruling proposes to allow Uisce \u00c9ireann spend \u20ac13.6 billion over that period, less than the total that the company sought but a 50 per cent increase on what it invested over the previous five years, the regulator confirmed on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Uisce \u00c9ireann will spend \u20ac8.56 billion on new water supply and waste treatment facilities and \u20ac5.02 billion on its operations, under the plans the commission says it will approve, pending public consultation.<\/p>\n

They cover work on 163 new and existing treatment plants in areas where water quality is at risk, 61 waste handling facilities, 239km of pipelines, work to ensure discharged waste water complies with rules, pumping stations and other infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Fergal Mulligan, CRU commissioner, cautioned that the regulator had identified crucial targets that Uisce \u00c9ireann must meet in return for getting its plans approved.<\/p>\n

\"\"How AI is beginning to wreak havoc in the jobs market <\/p>\n

Bottlenecks in the State\u2019s water supply system emerged as a key barrier to new house building earlier this year, when the company warned the Government that it faced serious challenges in building infrastructure needed to facilitate the coalition\u2019s 50,000 a-year housing target.<\/p>\n

Separate to the investment proposals, the Government pledged \u20ac1.4 billion in Budget 2026 to Uisce \u00c9ireann from National Development Plan funds to provide supply and waste water treatment facilities needed to support new home building.<\/p>\n

Mr Mulligan argued that the cash was needed to facilitate new house construction and to support economic development.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will address years of under funding in the country\u2019s water sector and is the largest we have ever proposed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The CRU is putting its draft to public consultation before deciding on whether to finally approve the plans.<\/p>\n

Justin Johnston, Uisce \u00c9ireann\u2019s strategy, resilience and regulation director, welcomed the news.<\/p>\n

Uisce \u00c9ireann will use the cash to help fund national projects including Water Supply Project Eastern and Midlands Region, which will ship water from the Shannon to big population centres in Leinster, and the greater Dublin drainage scheme.<\/p>\n

It will also go to providing additional water and wastewater treatment capacity, cutting leaks and boosting energy efficiency.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe encourage communities, stakeholders, and individuals to have their say on our ambitious plans,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Regulators are poised to back State water company Uisce \u00c9ireann\u2019s plans to spend almost \u20ac14 billion on tackling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,19,17,446],"class_list":{"0":"post-200561","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-uisce-eireann"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115614057186545184","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}