*Broadford has been waiting fifty five years for a sewerage plant. Photograph: Páraic McMahon.
DEPARTMENT officials have been blamed for causing delays to the development of wastewater treatment plans in Broadford and Cooraclare.
Both projects have been approved but have not yet advanced to construction stage. There has little progress for either area since December 2023 when their inclusion in a €50m pilot scheme was first announced.
At the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing and Local Government, Uisce Éireann confirmed that a consultant is expected to be appointed by September to progress design work, with the schemes then moving through detailed design and planning phases. Officials stated that, following completion of this process, the appointment of a contractor for both Broadford and Cooraclare is expected in 2027 as part of a national delivery programme.
Minister for Transport and Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment, Darragh O’Brien (FF) announced the inclusion of both villages in the scheme when serving as Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Minister O’Brien admitted he did not know it would take so long for the schemes to progress and was frustrated with how slow it has moved. “I’ve spoken to Minister James Browne about this and I’ve articulated this at Cabinet committee. I met residents of Broadford and Cooraclare, there were ten different towns across the country selected for this, the money was allocated, it is going to happen but it has been far too slow”.
Resistance to the €50m pilot from Department officials was criticised by the Dublin Fingal East TD. “If I can be dead straight with you, there was quite a degree of resistance within the Department at official level to these schemes, we had to fight tooth and nail to get them done. Broadford is a great case in point, Broadford wants to develop further and it cannot because it doesn’t have the wastewater capacity that it has, it is moving forward, I’ve spoken to James Browne on it. Am I frustrated that since the announcement we’re four years passed it and nothing has happened? Big time. I think to be fair, Clare County Council were really good on that one, some of the others weren’t as good as Clare to be straight to you, within the Department of Housing there was some at official level who effectively tried to block it”.
To try accelerate the projects, some spending gates have been removed, Minister O’Brien outlined. “Those schemes are back on tracks, we’ve removed some of those spending gates and Jack Chambers (Minister for Public Expenditure) has helped on that. We had an issue with wastewater, it has been identified and the Council own the lands, we have the criteria, we allocated the money and it wasn’t done fast enough, for me it is a disappointment, we need to get on and do it, I’ve spoken to James and in fairness to Timmy (Dooley) and Cathal (Crowe) they have been really pushing for it”.
