Nenagh election candidate meets Minister on need to invest in village's wastewater plant

Fianna Fáil local election candidate in the Nenagh LEA, Ryan O'Meara met the Minister for Housing, Darragh O'Brien, in Nenagh to discuss the need for investment in wastewater treatment plants in the area.

Minister O'Brien was in Nenagh last week for the official opening of the new social housing units in Woodview Close following which Mr O’Meara and Deputy Jackie Cahill raised the wastewater treatment plant in Cloughjordan, among other housing-related issues.

"I briefed the Minister on the issues affecting Cloughjordan as a result of a lack of capacity in the local sewerage system. We cannot build the houses we desperately need locally until Uisce Éireann gets working and builds capacity into the system,” he said after the meeting.

Mr O’Meara also raised the need to get the remaining houses in Townsfield estate connected into the mains system.

"The Ecovillage also has upwards of 50 serviced sites that cannot be sold until capacity is provided for wastewater treatment. This issue is completely strangling any progress that could be made in Cloughjordan for the delivery of housing,” he said.

 Mr O’Meara said that Minister O'Brien committed to discussing the Cloughjordan wastewater treatment plant upgrade with senior Uisce Éireann management and would come back to him with an update.

In June 2023, the Townsfields was one of only four estates nationally that was earmarked for funding under the Services Infrastructure Resolution Programme, once the local sewerage plant had the capacity to accept the remaining homes still to be connected. Some progress had been made on this legacy issue, but it cannot advance further until the local plant was provided with additional capacity, said Mr O’Meara.