The Irish Times view on Dublin’s water problems: time to address the deficits

Dublin escaped the worst effects of the recent heavy rainfall which caused such devastation in other parts of the country, and which threatens to do so again with the arrival of Storm Ciarán. But, as this week’s Irish Times series on the River Liffey reports, the capital has its own problems with water, despite being the driest region in Ireland.

While the lands along the Liffey itself are relatively well protected against flooding, the picture is different around Dublin Bay, where low-lying coastal suburbs like Clontarf and Sandymount are at increased risk from the storm surges which seem certain to become a more frequent feature of our weather. As polar ice caps melt and sea levels rise, the potential impact on these 19th century neighbourhoods is alarming. The large plastic sandbags which have become a seemingly permanent fixture along some coastal promenades are no substitute for the permanent works that are needed.

But Dublin also has a problem of too little water. The Liffey supplies 85 per cent of drinking water for a population of 1.7 million in the greater Dublin area. By European standards, this reliance on a single source is unusual for a population of this size and leaves users vulnerable to any major pollution event that might occur. Other threats include not just drought but also prolonged heavy rainfall, which can cause harmful wastewater to contaminate the supply. Because the system is almost always running near capacity, there is very little leeway to address such events. Where other European capitals have built-in redundancy, permitting a switch to alternative supplies if necessary, Dublin and other Irish cities have no such capacity.

The two separate challenges of building flood defences and ensuring water security are both symptomatic of the State’s failure over many years to match economic and population growth with parallel investment in vital infrastructure. Seawalls and sanitation systems initially constructed in the 19th century have fallen well below the needs of a much larger population which is now entering into a period of rapid climate change.

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The sorry saga of the failure of Irish Water’s funding model ten years ago suggests that our political system often penalises long-term strategic thinking while incentivising short-term opportunism. The challenge now facing Irish Water’s successor organisation, Uisce Éireann, is massive: to remedy decades of foot-dragging and build a national water supply fit for a prosperous country in the 21st century. That task must go hand in hand with a commitment to best environmental practice, including setting biodiversity targets, encouraging rewilding and ensuring that Ireland’s rivers, lakes and coastal waters are free from industrial, agricultural and human waste. .