Irish Water to carry out EIA for Dublin water supply project

Irish Water has issued tender for a survey specialist to begin work on the €500m infrastructure project to supply water to Dublin from the River Shannon.

The specialist needs to carry out a water quality survey of Lough Derg down the length of the River Shannon.

The utility is currently engaged in carrying out environmental, technical and economic impact assessments of possible schemes, with the preferred one to be selected later this year and then submitted to the Irish planning authority prior to late 2015.

A three-year authorisation process is then expected to be followed by two years for design, tender processes, funding agreement, all funding and budget approvals and contract signing, with a further three years for construction.

Irish Water envisions delivering around 66 million gallons of water a day to residents in Dublin, further increasing the output to 92 million gallons by 2035.

Recently, taps in around 600,000 homes in the city were closed due to breakdowns at the Ballymore Eustace water treatment facility in County Kildare, impacting 1.5 million inhabitants.