Ireland does not have enough water and wastewater infrastructure to support the escalation in housing targets, the Construction Industry Federation has said.

According to infrastructure experts, there's a €15-billion deficit in water and wastewater pipes and pumps - and that money has not been set aside for new capital investment in the budget. 

Uisce Éireann, the company that manages the Irish water network, has said it needs €120-billion for capital investment.

On Breakfast Business, the Construction Industry Federation director Paul Sheridan said we “don't have enough water and wastewater infrastructure” in the ground to “support the escalation in housing targets” moving forward. 

He said we also don’t have enough water and wastewater infrastructure “to support our foreign direct investment (FDI) and in particular, I suppose, the broader economic model that Ireland has”.

“We understand that Uisce Éireann have no new capital investment funding for 2025,” Mr Sheridan said.

“We've seen a de-escalation between 2024 going now into 2025 in terms of their capital delivery.

“My members are seeing - a number of them - nearly €60 million in a drop in revenue for 2025.”

Mr Sheridan said that their members, who deliver major infrastructural works for Uisce Éireann, have seen staff layoffs last year and reallocations because the system is not using up the capacity of their expertise. 

No infrastructure funding

According to Mr Sheridan, the Construction Industry Federation were trying to figure out where in Uisce Éireann the €1-billion set aside and promised in the budget from the AIB share sale business was going. 

“Now, what we understand is that €1-billion was given to Uisce Éireann - however €700-million of it has gone to deal with their debt facility, which doesn't involve new capital delivery,” he said. 

"The other €300-million of that balance then was set aside to deal with deficits and the connection rebate scheme that was implemented.

“Which was rightly implemented to increase commencements.

“However, it's only put Uisce Éireann back at zero, which means they're in a position where they have no new infrastructure funding for this year and 98% of all the funding for last year has all been allocated for existing projects.

“So we're in a difficult situation where we should be seeing each area ramping up when, in actual fact, they're actually scaling down.”

Mr Sheridan said the reality is we “need to build this infrastructure” as a country.

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Team carrying pipe. Image: Uisce Éireann