Thousands of new homes pledged by the Government over the next five years may not be built because there is not enough water, Uisce Éireann has warned, writes Adam Pogrund.

The water body also says it needs an extra €1.7bn in funding or it simply cannot complete the job.

Despite the Government targeting an average of 50,000 new homes annually, Uisce Éireann can only currently supply 35,000 new homes a year for the next five years, the head of the beleaguered water utility admitted yesterday.

Chief Niall Gleeson said: “We’re in discussions with the Government about additional funding, up to €1.7bn, to get us from the 35,000 to 50,000 homes.

“That €1.7bn needs to be ring-fenced for growth programmes. If we don’t get the funding, we’re not going to be able to deliver that level of housing. That’s for sure.

“But I suppose one of the most important points is it’s not just Uisce Éireann; other entities need to be involved in these processes.”

Housing campaigner David Hall, of the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation, said: “It’s remarkable to be on an island and have the problem of water.

“It isn’t being treated with the urgency or importance it deserves to be. It deserves to be treated like an emergency and all the various arms of the State need to be acting together.

“It is quite remarkable that the number-one item for consideration during the most recent general election was housing and still the infrastructure was never increased so that it would be able to reach numbers needed.”

He said that during the election “all political parties were just utterly waffling in relation to how many numbers they would provide, as if it’s just magic pixie dust to just make these targets up”.

“But it requires connecting to water, connecting to electricity, a skilled workforce and funding,” he added.

“There is a whole heap of components which need to be made up, but politically everyone just seems to give numbers which sound attractive – the reality is they can’t deliver it, and it’s a major issue.

“The public deserve to know that Irish Water doesn’t have the capacity to deliver numbers we were all told at the recent general election.”

Mr Hall said he knows of six social housing units in Dublin which are built but remain disconnected to water.

He added: “Housing units turned down is shameful.

“There is no prioritisation given to social homes versus private homes versus commercial property.”

The Construction Industry Federation’s director of housing, Connor O’Connell, said: “The figures aren’t surprising.

“We have consistently said that the funding for water and waste water infrastructure needs to increase significantly if we are to achieve our housing targets of at least 50,000 per annum.

“All the reports we were getting say that there are significant challenges with connecting to waste water infrastructure – this figure from Uisce Éireann illustrates the need to really increase our funding for water and waste infrastructure to meet our targets.”

While the Government intends to build 303,000 new homes across the State by 2030, the water capacity shortage potentially cuts that figure by 75,000.

Mr Gleeson also said hundreds of housing units have been rejected as a result of limited supplies.

He said: “We have said no to certain areas… we rejected about 200 to 300 [housing units] this year. It will happen in certain locations.

“But we have flagged those locations clearly in our capacity registers. So people need to understand that we will make the investments but it is five years away, probably, from changing that capacity, so developers will have to look elsewhere in the meantime.

“That’s a problem that will happen around the country, and we will have to accept that.”

Mr Gleeson also told RTÉ’s This Week that the housing unit rejections were “not a huge number” and that around 38,000 homes were approved this year.

In August, in Dunmanway, Co. Cork, planning applications for 126 homes were halted because there was no water treatment capacity at the nearby waste water plant.

Upgrades to the plant’s infrastructure are reportedly five years away.

In October, planning permission for more than 500 homes near Dundalk was refused because Uisce Éireann was not able to provide an effective waste water treatment system, Louth TD Ruairí Ó Murchu revealed.

The application for 502 homes at Haggardstown, Co. Louth, was refused by An Bord Pleanála because of concerns about the “existing deficiency in the capacity of sewerage facilities” at the Coe’s Road pumping station which wouldn’t be fixed until 2027, Uisce Éireann said.

Mr Gleeson also warned there would not be capacity to supply large new industries with water in Dublin.

He said the water utility “would struggle” to supply a large pharmaceutical plant with enough water to meet its needs.

He added: “We would struggle in the GDA (Greater Dublin Area) to have a large pharmaceutical plant joining the water network.”

He said the current system is “very stretched”.

Mr Gleeson added: “We’re generating about 600million litres of water a day.

“There were quite a number of days this year where we consume 620million litres and we make up capacity over the overnight or at the weekends.

“So the city is stretched, we’re trying to reserve as much as we can for housing capacity and growth.

“Dublin, like Munich or Lisbon, should have alternative water supplies but we don’t at the moment. So we’re very reliant on the Liffey, which means we’ve no resilience.”