COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF LUCAN / PALMERSTOWN / NORTH CLONDALKIN AREA COMMITTEE

Tuesday, November 25, 2025

QUESTION NO.10

QUESTION: Councillor H. Farrell

To ask the Manager if there are any plans in the next year or two to publish quarterly updates on river water quality in the LPNC areas, and what measures are (or will) being taken to accelerate the identification and correction of mis-connections contributing to pollution in local streams and rivers?

REPLY:

SDCC, as Lead Authority of the Dublin Urban Rivers LIFE (DURL) Project, commenced a demonstration project in the Lucan, Adamstown, Griffeen Valley Park, Deansrath and Grange Castle regions of the River Griffeen Catchment in July 2018 to tackle pollution from domestic misconnections. To address the ‘at source’  removal of domestic misconnections SDCC staff carried out misconnection assessments at 5,328 houses in the River Griffeen Catchment, over a three year period commencing in June 2021, and identified over 410 misconnected households impacting on the water quality in the River Griffeen.

Active engagement from SDCC staff with homeowners, and a robust misconnections education and awareness programme including the provision of information leaflets and ‘Green Estate Demonstrations’ with residents associations, enabled the replumbing of 95% of the misconnections to date, with the remainder under repair. Homeowners are responsible for the repair and replumbing of the misconnected appliance and 72% of the repairs were completed by either DIY or Family Help.  SDCC commenced domestic misconnection assessments in a River Camac sub-catchment in 2024 and additional sub-catchments are scheduled for this waterbody.

In addition to the domestic misconnection work, an Integrated Constructed Wetland was developed in Griffeen Valley Park in 2022, as part of the DURL Project,  to provide a nature-based solution to filter and treat pollution from urban runoff and misconnections prior to discharging to the River Griffeen. Local residents assisted in the planting of native pollinator friendly and colourful plant varieties in the wetlands, creating a hands-on connection with the wetland and a sense of ownership for years to come.

The results of the surface water quality monitoring, completed by SDCC staff on the Water Framework Directive (WFD) operational, surveillance and investigative stations in the WFD Sub-catchment  Liffey_SC_090 encompassing Lucan, Palmerstown and North Clondalkin, are available on the EPA www.catchments.ie website. The available water quality monitoring data has been analysed by the EPA Laboratories or uploaded to the EDEN Monitoring Data system and marked as an 'EPA return'.