This article is from page 8 of the 2012-09-25 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 8 JPG
CARRIGAHOLT has been waiting 40 years for a public sewerage scheme, but the withdrawal of Government funding for the project means the picturesque village now has an indefinite wait for this essen tial service.
The € 1.5 million allocated to the project in 2008, jointly with Labasheeda, has been rescinded, despite promises that the money was ringfenced for the work.
Carrigaholt postmaster Pat Gavin described the wait as a disgrace.
“We have no bus service, no roads, no sewerage system and they want us to pay € 100 – for what?” he asked.
“Carrigaholt is at a standstill and there can be no further development until we get a sewerage scheme,” he said.
Carrigaholt and Labasheeda joint sewerage scheme was on the 20062008 Water Services Investment Programme (WSIP). A considerable amount of design work was carried out on it by Clare County Council up to and including 2009.
The local authority re-submitted it to the department of the environment as part of the 2009 ‘Assessment of Needs’ which fed into preparation of the 2010-2012 (now re-designated as 2010-2013) WSIP.
The Department did not include the project on the list for 2010-2012 however, despite allocating funding as far back as 2008.
“In our submission to the DECLG (Department of the Environment) for the 2011 Annual Review of the WSIP, we re-submitted the Carrigaholt element alone, on the basis that there are designated shellfish waters off Carrigaholt and that the DECLG had prepared a Shellfish Water Pollution Reduction Plan which in the council’s opinion warranted re-inclusion of the scheme as a pollution reduction measure.
“However the DECLG didn’t accept our submission,” explained Sean Ward, senior engineer with Clare County Council.
He added that it was impossible to say when the scheme would be back on the Department’s books again.
Meanwhile, the people of Carrigaholt remain in the same development limbo it has been constrained by for the last 40 years.