Irish Water has welcomed Tuesday’s Budget announcement by Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien TD, of a record funding allocation of €1.557 billion in 2023 for Irish Water.

The water company said the funding will allow it to progress projects across the country, delivering jobs, increasing capacity for housing and development and supporting economic growth.

Significant projects earmarked to continue in 2023 with the support of Irish Water’s supply chain partners include leakage reduction works and upgrades to water and wastewater plants and networks.

Speaking about the allocation Niall Gleeson, CEO of Irish Water, said:

“We welcome the continued commitment to funding water services by Minister O’Brien and the Department for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. The increase in capital investment in public water services is vital to support housing delivery, economic recovery, and for delivering environmental compliance. The additional funding comes at a time of exceptional inflationary pressures within the global environment and will ensure our programmes of works continues at pace.

“Irish Water’s Strategic Funding Plan sets out our ambition for the building, repair and upgrading of Irish Water’s water treatment plants, wastewater treatment plants, water and sewer network. This investment is already seeing results; in 2021 over half a million customers were removed from at-risk water supplies, major infrastructure projects delivered, over 99% of our drinking water was compliant with regulations and we have reduced raw sewage discharges nationally by over 60%. We will also continue our investment in leakage and in supporting social and economic growth enabling delivery on the Housing For All objectives. In 2021 Irish Water issued positive connection offers associated with 32,404 housing units. And we are on track to exceed that in 2022, with positive connection offers associated with over 18,000 housing units in the first half of this year alone.”

Next year’s commitment on funding means Irish Water is now on track to invest in the region of €5.3 billion in water services from 2020 through to 2024.