Residents waiting almost 20 years for connection to Offaly town sewerage system

IT'S almost 20 year ago since the Ballydaly-Tinnycross Sewerage Scheme in Tullamore, sought connection to the town's sewerage network.

Now Irish Water have suggested the residents build the infrastructure required for the connection themselves, at an estimated cost of €1million.

Dominic Guinan who is the secretary of the group said that, ''following completion, we are obliged to hand over the finished project to Irish Water for free and then pay Irish Water €3,499 per house to be allowed connect to the scheme that we ourselves had built. The maximum grant available per house is €7,650. If any householder in the area did not contribute to the initial cost of the scheme, then they could join the scheme for €3,499, the same as those who paid to build the project.''

There are 45 houses in the scheme and in March 2003 with the support of Offaly County Council the group forged ahead with plans to get connected. An engineer was appointed, a map was drawn up, soil testing took place, and tenders were sought. Up to 6 people expressed an interest in carrying out the work. It was shovel ready. However, after all of that they didn't get approval.

Then there was fresh hope when a new private hospital was being built by the Flanagan Group on the N52 just off the Tullamore by-pass. ''There was a tentative agreement with the Flanagan Group that we could hook in with their system and get into the town scheme through that. We have a letter on file from the Flanagan group. We thought this will solve our problems,'' said Dominic. However, the hospital didn't proceed and it was back to square one for the group.

John Flanagan Developments Ltd received permission last year to build a nursing home, step down facility, rehabilitation and convalescence unit on the same site.

We contacted the company for comment and Joint Managing Director, Dominic Doheny said ''There is an agreement in principal and that agreement still stands.'' However, he said it will depend if it is ''viable and designable.''

Meanwhile Irish Water have said they received a pre-connection enquiry for the proposed sewerage scheme at Ballydaly-Tinnycross and a confirmation of feasibility letter was issued in July 2021 confirming that a connection to the Irish Water foul sewer network was feasible.

In a statement they said; ''Irish Water are not the responsible body in relation to the grant of funding for schemes of this nature, this falls under the Dept. of Housing, Local Government and Heritage who approve funding under the Multi-Annual Rural Water Programme. The Rural Water Section of the Local Authority provides support to schemes wishing to make submissions to the funding programme.

Once the proposed scheme receives a grant of funding, Irish Water will work with the scheme and the Local Authority Rural Water Section to facilitate a connection to the Irish Water network.''

Dominic Guinan said Irish Water took over in 2016. ''When Irish Water took over, they decided to take 6 schemes and use them as a template as to how to get this done. I saw the list of schemes that was submitted for the second scheme and ours wasn't on it. We had done everything, but we weren't approved, '' said Dominic. He said they were told they would have to wait for another three years before they could apply again. They did wait, but when they applied they found out that none of the 6 schemes had been completed.

Dominic said he was annoyed at a recent report from the Environmental Protection Agency EPA indicating the issues surrounding septic tanks and their potential for pollution. Yet he said Irish Water is doing nothing to solve the problems.

''If these two organisations the EPA and Irish Water worked together and instead of saying the potential for pollution from septic tanks is a huge problem, maybe they should be saying let's look at the problem.''

He said his septic tank has never been inspected. A neighbour believes his septic tank wouldn't pass as it's too close to the house. The neighbour who built his house 45 years ago had no option but to put the septic tank at this location as he was told to build his house well back from the road which gave very little room at the back to allow for the septic tank and there is not enough soakage.

''There are three people I know of that spent over €10,000 putting in a new percolation area and it's still overflowing because there is not enough soakage.'' said Dominic.

''Little wonder then that there are ongoing problems with septic tanks countrywide and our committee believe that all houses in our area will continue to be serviced by their tanks, thus increasing the potential danger of causing pollution, for the foreseeable future.

Should any member of our community be brought to court over the inefficiency of their septic tanks, we trust that our efforts to deal with the problems over the past almost 20 years will be a major mitigating factor,'' concluded Dominic.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, over half of septic tanks inspected failed and more than one quarter were a risk to human health or the environment. ''The National Inspection Plan 2022-2026 requires increased enforcement by local authorities to resolve failed systems.'' A report from the EPA said.