Council calls for Government funding to stop raw sewage backing up in Cork village

Back-ups of effluent into local houses represents an 'urgent environment and public health issue', councillors heard

Councillors said water from the Bandon River was supplying other towns in Cork. Picture: Denis Minihane.

Cork County Council is seeking an urgent meeting with Environment Minister Eamon Ryan to discuss who is going to pay to stop sewage backing up into people’s homes in the village of Crossbarry.

It also wants to raise fears with him that two towns will stagnate if water continues to be drawn from the River Bandon to supply other areas.

Both issues were the major topics for discussion at a meeting of the Bandon-Kinsale Municipal District Council.

The most urgent is the situation in Crossbarry, as colleagues of Fianna Fáil councillor Gillian Coughlan agreed with her that the “half-functioning sewerage system” in the village, which leads to back-ups of effluent into local houses, represents an “urgent environment and public health issue". 

Upgrading the system will cost nearly €4.5m. The council had been provided with a Government grant for the work, but it is more than €1m short. The local authority does not have the money to bridge the gap. Furthermore, since last September Uisce Éireann has been put in charge of all such projects.

Ms Coughlan said Mr Ryan had to intervene and get the water utility to do the work as “there is real suffering” being experienced by villagers, with the sewerage getting into their houses.

Independent councillor Alan Coleman said the council also did not have the staff to carry it out as those seconded to work in conjunction with Uisce Éireann have transferred full-time to the utility since last September.

“It’s absolutely appalling anyway that the department would expect us to find €1.1m to prop up the project. Delays will cause costs to rocket. We’re all concerned about the people in Crossbarry. It’s absolutely urgent at this stage,” Fine Gael councillor Kevin Murphy said.

The meeting heard from Fianna Fáil councillor Sean O’Donovan of his understanding that the council’s chief executive wrote to the water utility last summer seeking a meeting on the issue but it had not happened.

Meanwhile, Ms Coughlan said she was seriously concerned abstraction of water from the River Bandon to supply other towns further away, such as Clonakilty, would stagnate future development in Bandon and Kinsale. Some of the water is even supplying parts of Carrigaline.

She said this was not sustainable and called for the creation of two new reservoirs to supply both towns.

“A secure water supply is required for the rapidly growing populations of Bandon and Kinsale along with the hospitals, schools and businesses in the area in to the future,” she added.

“The Bandon river should be for the Bandon catchment area and not other areas,” Mr O’Donovan said.

However, Fine Gael councillor John O’Sullivan said he had information of a major revamp which would see water being pumped from the Inniscarra Reservoir to supply the Bandon, Kinsale and Clonakilty catchment areas.

He said a lack of water in the Bandon/Kinsale municipal district area had led to “substantial periods in 2022 and 2023” where planning permissions were refused in the villages of Courtmacsherry, Timoleague, Ring and Darra.

“Water must come from Inniscarra. Connecting to Inniscarra would be the greatest infrastructural improvement in the area in my lifetime. Unless done, the whole of the municipal district will be deprived of water and development,” Mr O’Sullivan said.

Ms Coughlan said the council had not been presented with any plan for an Inniscarra supply and they needed to find out what was happening.