Half of septic tank owners pay by deadline

Almost half of households with septic tanks registered with their local authority before the deadline of Sep 28 to avail of the reduced €5 registration fee.

The Department of Environment confirmed 165,253 owners of septic tanks registered before the end of last month, while a further 85,000 applications submitted before the deadline are still being processed by the Local Government Services Management Agency.

The late surge helped to push the registration rate up from 33% to almost 50% in the space of a week, raising around €1.25m to fund an inspection scheme which will come into effect next year to bring Ireland in line with EU legislation.