Public consultation on our draft Regional Water Resources Plan for the Eastern and Midlands Region continues
The statutory public consultation on Uisce Éireann's draft Regional Water Resources Plan for the Eastern and Midlands (RWRP-EM) Region continues until 14 March 2022. New evening webinars have been added to give people more opportunities to meet our team, hear what they have to say and send us their feedback. The evening webinars will take place on Wednesday, February 16 at 7:30pm and Wednesday, February 23 at 7:30pm.
The three-month public consultation began on 14 December 2021 and sets out the options for providing a more secure, reliable and sustainable water supply for 2.5 million customers in the Eastern and Midlands region over the next 25 years. This public consultation is everyone's opportunity to feed into the process of how Uisce Éireann identifies the water supply issues in the region and what the options are to provide a more resilient water supply to customers.
Public webinars were held by day on February 2, 3, 7 and 8. In response to requests for webinars to be held outside of working hours, two additional evening webinars have been added over the next fortnight. The webinars provide information on the draft Regional Water Resources Plan Eastern and Midlands and allow opportunities to pose questions to inform submissions. If you would like to be part of one of the additional online public webinars on the draft Regional Water Resources Plan Eastern and Midlands and associated environmental reports, you can provide an expression of interest on our website.
Speaking about the public consultation on the draft plan, Angela Ryan, Water Resource Strategy Specialist for Uisce Éireann said, "We have had really good engagement at our webinars so far. We hope to facilitate more engagement by adding two extra evening webinars. We would encourage everybody to get involved and have their say on the draft plan.
"Development of the draft plan will allow Uisce Éireann for the first time to review water supply needs collectively across the entire Eastern and Midlands Region covering a broad spectrum of risk including quality, quantity, reliability and sustainability. It will allow us to consider local options to resolve these needs and larger regional options that can address multiple supplies.
"The draft Regional Plan will also offer key benefits in terms of transformation of our supplies, including the ability to cater for growth and economic development in a sustainable way, improved interconnectivity between our supplies to ensure balanced regional development, and new sustainable water sources that are adaptable to climate change such as the new Shannon source which is coming from the largest catchment in Ireland.
"If people are interested in our plans for the Eastern and Midlands Region, they are welcome to join one of our evening webinars and hear more from our team," explained Angela.
Uisce Éireann is now seeking feedback on the public consultation for the draft RWRP: EM and associated SEA Environmental Report and Natura Impact Statement. The documents are available to view on our website.
A 13-week statutory public consultation will continue to run until 14 March 2022.
Submissions can be made by post or email by 14 March 2022.
Email: nwrp@water.ie
Post: National Water Resources Plan, Uisce Éireann, PO Box 13216, Glenageary, Co. Dublin
All submissions will be taken into consideration and responses to the issues raised will be summarised in a Consultation Report which will be published here.