The delivery of thousands of homes in the Dublin area is at risk after a legal case was lodged against a major water project by a serial objector.
Uisce Éireann warned that a judicial review into the €1.3billion Greater Dublin Drainage Project for north Dublin and parts of Meath and Kildare meant that its ability to deliver 'new housing connections will remain under review'.
The judicial review was filed on Tuesday against the planned treatment facility on a 30-hectare site at Clonshaugh, which is set to provide wastewater treatment for half a million people.
The review was lodged by environmental NGO Wild Irish Defence, which is run by Peter Sweetman and Catherine McMahon. When contacted by Extra.ie, Mr Sweetman said that he did not comment on active cases.
When asked if he would comment on the dozens of other planning objections he has been involved in over the last few decades, he refused. When asked if he had a comment on the judicial reviews' potential impact on new homes being connected to the wastewater grid during a housing crisis, Mr Sweetman stated: 'No means no.'
Both Mr Sweetman and Ms McMahon submitted objections to An Coimisiún Pleanála (ACP) ahead of its decision on the case. Mr Sweetman stated that the environmental impact assessment report for the project was not 'complete, precise and definitive'.
'The project description is incomplete in that no indication of biogas storage at the Clonshaugh site or spreading of sewage sludge on agricultural land is proposed,' he wrote.
Ms McMahon submitted an objection to ACP on behalf of the Velvet Strand Concerned Sea Swimmers and Beach Users group. She stated that there had not been an assessment of the impact of the project's outfall pipe releasing treated wastewater to a discharge point 6km out to sea at Baldoyle.
Efforts were made to contact Ms McMahon for comment. This comes after Taoiseach Micheál Martin stated in July that he didn't believe the public was 'aware of the urgency' of the need for critical infrastructure.
'The people of Dublin need it and surrounding counties need it. We do not have the luxury or the capacity for extended judicial review mechanisms and processes anymore,' Mr Martin said.
Green Party planning spokesperson Oisín O'Connor told Extra.ie that the judicial review's implications for housing and sewage treatment were 'really, really concerning'.
He said: 'It's an essential piece of infrastructure for Dublin. 'If Uisce Éireann don't build it, it might not be possible to build homes in the early part of the next decade. The Ringsend sewage plant is over capacity at the moment and the environmental impact of that will be damaging.
I'm very concerned that we could have a gap of several years where Uisce Éireann might have to go and tell councils, "Don't approve those homes because we don't have the water infrastructure".'
He continued: 'We're already in a desperate situation with getting infrastructure connected for housing. The impact of not doing it will mean that raw sewage has nowhere to go. The planning of new homes is a huge factor. If we can't build homes where the demand is in Dublin, think of the environmental impact of people living further away and commuting.'
Sinn Féin housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said the project is already years behind schedule because of the Government's 'failure to listen' to recommendations to speed up planning.
The TD said: 'The last judicial review concluded two-and-a-half years ago and the project has sat at An Bord Pleanála for two-and-a-half years. There simply isn't enough staff there or judges in the High Court.'
A spokesperson for Uisce Éireann stated that the organisation was 'disappointed' that the facility would be delayed. The utility aimed to have the project completed by 2032, but said it had been waiting on progress with An Bord Pleanála, now An Coimisiún Pleanála, since 2019 when a High Court decision had overturned its planning permission.
Uisce Éireann's director of infrastructure delivery, Maria O'Dwyer, said: 'Given population growth since then, the Greater Dublin Drainage [GDD] project has become even more critical to support Dublin's current and long-term social and economic development, particularly in regard to the provision of much-needed new housing across the Greater Dublin Area. Uisce Éireann hopes that the GDD case will progress quickly through the judicial review process.'
She added: 'In the absence of clarity and certainty on the timeline for the delivery of the GDD project, Uisce Éireann will continue to optimise available network capacity at the Ringsend wastewater treatment plant.'
The utility company's chief executive, Niall Gleeson, previously hit out at 'serial objectors' and stated that 18 cases for a judicial review into the GDD project had been sought in the past.
'We are the environmental improvers here,' Mr Gleeson commented in May.
Of the 18 cases where a judicial review was sought regarding the GDD project, 'only one of them was upheld', he said, adding: 'So what is that telling you about the judicial review system?'