There are fresh concerns that a plan to pipe water from the River Shannon to Dublin could cost billions.
Uisce Eireann should fix Dublin’s infrastructure before they look at any water pipeline connecting the capital to the River Shannon, says a Limerick TD. Richard O’Donoghue has said after seeing how Uisce Eireann misused funds in transporting water to Croom, he does not trust the state-owned utility company with the proposed pipeline project, which is estimated to cost billions.
A planning application is expected to be lodged by the end of the year at a cost of up to 6 billion euro, but it’s reported it could be as high as 10 billion. Limerick people and people living along the Shannon are worried about the impact it would have.
O’Donoghue told Live 95 News that billions of euros of taxpayers money would be used to fund the project, and he does not have faith that they can actually bring in any project online, on time and on budget, “I think there’s a lot more to be discussed about that.”
The Independent Ireland TD thinks leaks in Dublin’s water network should be fixed first, “Fix your own infrastructure first and then we can look at what they need.”
According to O’Donoghue, the project should be managed independently, “We also need to make sure that we have an independent overbody to look at the funding streams that Irish water are getting and the value for money that they are able to provide.”
A construction company owner from Banogue, which was also effected by water outages recently, Richard O’Donoghue is in regular contact with European counterparts on related issues, “Because if you look across other countries and other projects, if I ran my business like Irish water run theirs, we wouldn’t be in business.”
The Limerick County TD is calling on accountability, “…there has to be accountability across the board in Irish water and they need to be priced against other projects to show that they’re giving us value for money.”
A planning application is expected to be lodged by the end of the year for the pipeline, which is estimated to cost at least 6 billion euro.
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