The Minister for Housing needs to take responsibility for delivering critical water infrastructure for new homes, according to Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne.<\/p>\n
Deputy Hearne, who is the party\u2019s housing spokesperson, said:<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the D\u00e1il today, I called on the Minister to make an emergency intervention to ensure that Uisce \u00c9ireann delivers the water and waste water infrastructure necessary for building 50,000 homes a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not acceptable for a State-owned company to claim, as it has, that it has no mandate \u2013 or sufficient funding \u2013 to provide for future housing growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI recently submitted a parliamentary question asking the Minister for Housing to confirm the number of housing developments waiting to commence because of water infrastructure delays.<\/p>\n
\u201cBizarrely, my question was ruled out of order on the basis that the Minister for Housing has no official responsibility in this area to D\u00e1il \u00c9ireann. This is despite the fact that the Department of Housing lists water as one of its five core policy areas; the Minister for Housing appoints the board of Uisce \u00c9ireann; and its shareholders are the Minister for Housing and the Minister for Public Expenditure.<\/p>\n
\u201cUisce \u00c9ireann is a State-owned company, yet when we look for accountability, no minister is taking responsibility for water infrastructure delivery.<\/p>\n
\u201cMinister Browne must take emergency action and immediately allocate sufficient funding to Uisce \u00c9ireann to ensure that lack of water infrastructure is not a barrier to future housing growth.\u201d<\/p>\n
April 10, 2025<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Minister for Housing needs to take responsibility for delivering critical water infrastructure for new homes, according to Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne. Deputy Hearne, who is the party\u2019s housing spokesperson, said: \u201cIn the D\u00e1il today, I called on the Minister to make an emergency intervention to ensure that Uisce \u00c9ireann delivers the water and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11759,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,7,510],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-housing-crisis","category-press-release","category-rory-hearne"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n