4million bathtubs of water every day

That’s what pipe from Shannon to Dublin will carry

A NEW Irish Water pipeline could see as many as 4.1million bathtubs of water a day moved from the River Shannon to the greater Dublin area.

The proposed pipeline will cost an estimated €1.3billion, stretch over a 170km and will be able to transport up to 330million litres a day.

Irish Water announced yesterday that it would be seeking planning permission from An Bord Pleanála next year.

But it has been met with opposition from some quarters, and has been branded both a ‘vanity project’ and ‘reckless’.

The project aims to take water from the lower Shannon at Parteen Basin in Tipperary, have it treated in a nearby plant at Birdhill, before it is piped 170km to a reservoir in Peamount in Co. Dublin. Irish Water is seeking to move forward with plans following the publication of a report yesterday. The utility said that the pipe will deliver ‘a secure, reliable, and sustainable longterm water supply that will be critical to support the eastern and midlands region’s social and economic growth’.

On RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, managing director of Irish Water Jerry Grant said: ‘It’s a national priority for us to bring a new major water supply to the greater Dublin area and to the midlands region, because we are frankly running out of water.

‘We’ve seen a 7-8% increase in demand in this region in the last four years that reflects clearly the recovery in the economy and the growing population.

‘We are going to have 600,000 additional people in the greater Dublin area in the next 30 years according to the National Planning Framework... We have no water to supply those,’ he said.

According to Irish Water, currently 658million litres of water are lost nationwide every day due to leakage. But Mr Grant said that it was not feasible to replace leaking pipes at a rate of more than 1% a year because it would cause disruption to water users and traffic.

‘We will have to replace all the leakiest pipes over time and that is part of the process. But frankly, the amount of disruption to the public to traffic users and to water users if you try to get above 1% would be so massive that you would bring the city to a standstill,’ said Mr Grant.

The project will go for planning permission in 2019 and if it goes ahead it will be the first major upgrade to Ireland’s water infrastructure in over 60 years.

But Independent TD Mattie McGrath has called on the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government Eoghan Murphy as well Irish Water to suspend plans for the pipeline.

‘I cannot over-emphasise the scale of the institutional arrogance that is being displayed by Irish Water in terms of its commitment to proceed with this utterly reckless and wasteful project,’ said Mr McGrath.

‘At the very least the minister and Irish Water should have waited until all of the evidence was thoroughly examined before it rushed to judgment on the advisability of this completely redundant pipeline,’ he added.

Liam Minehan is a farmer in Tipperary as well as member of Fight the Pipe Ireland, an organisation that represents land owners who will be affected by this project. He called the proposed pipeline ‘a vanity project’.

‘For generations we’ve worked the farm here, we’ve accumulated a bit of land, it is your life. Then someone comes along and tells you he is going to put a compulsory purchase order across it for necessary infrastructure. And then it turns out that it is not necessary infrastructure, this is nothing more than a trophy for a few engineers. It’s not viable,’ said Mr Minehan.

‘They are purchasing a wayleave, in that they are going to take a 50metre strip off me, take possession of the land for up to three years. They are going to destroy my farm and give it back to me.’

‘It’s a national priority’