COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, October 17, 2016

QUESTION NO.4

QUESTION: Councillor W. Lavelle

To ask the Chief Executive to outline the Council’s plans for dealing with the serious problem of misconnections of domestic foul water drainage systems resulting in pollution of the surface water drainage system and of rivers and streams as such as the Griffeen?

REPLY:

This is a problem for all Local Authorities but is a particular issue for urban authorities.

South Dublin County Council carry out inspections of housing estates at the taking in charge stage to ascertain the level of misconnections and the developer must correct any misconnections prior to the estate being taken in charge. Work has also been carried out in older estates but this requires door to door inspections and this is a very labour intensive exercise. While there have been successes there is a requirement for a large financial and time investment to deal with this problem.

The solution will require home owners carrying out works on their properties to correct the misconnection and this has happened in some instances. An Integrated Constructed Wetland can also be installed to treat the problem at the point of discharge to the water course but this is dependent on the availability of land in the appropriate location and the availability of funding.

A long term plan is currently being formulated and South Dublin County Council have applied for European LIFE funding for this work.