Across rural Fingal, water treatment plants are at capacity

Ian Lennon wasn’t certain of what he spotted in the River Delvin. He was either looking at a tiny eel, or a really large parasite.

He pulled his phone out to get a picture, kneeling on the riverbank outside Naul on Friday just before 4pm. The thin hairworm-looking organism swam through the shallow waters between a waterfall and a dam.

The waters were still. Because of the dam, there was no flow in the river, said Lennon. “Where do all the nutrients go? They just float around here.”

Yellowy scum and white foam floated around on the surface. A mix of nutrients, he says. “It isn’t properly diluting and going down the river.”

The riverbank is just below an old forge on the Dublin-Meath border. “It’s going back to the 1600s,” said Philip Gaffney, as heaved a red and white rowboat onto its side, and pushed aside some sycamore branches to get a glimpse of a weir.

It’s an area with some rich wildlife, Lennon says. “There’s kingfishers, there’s dippers.”

There aren’t many eels left, Gaffney says. “There’s otters.”

It’s also located next to the local wastewater treatment plant. Gaffney points across the river to its location behind a gate that hides among a thicket of trees. “The sewage comes out right from where that gate is,” he says.

In recent years, the pollution has gotten worse, says Gaffney, who lives down by the river. “I have an area that was a beautifully scenic area where I used to be able to go and sit.”

His daughter contracted an infection from the water in 2018, he says. “Sewage cake. That got in her system.”

Now, it’s completely out of bounds for paddling or swimming, he says.

The problems stem from the fact that the Naul plant has been operating at capacity for at least two decades. It isn’t the only wastewater treatment facility in Fingal that is maxed out.

Across the county, five treatment plants are at capacity. The others are in Newtown, Oldtown, Ballyboghill and Turvey cottages – all in rural villages – according to Uisce Éireann’s capacity register.

Wastewater infrastructure in rural Fingal is stymying the ability of villages to grow, Lennon says. “But it also has very serious consequences, not just for the environment, but for human health.”

Some long-awaited upgrades are showing signs of life. Uisce Éireann – which is in charge of the plants – applied to Fingal County Council on Thursday, 19 June for permission to upgrade Naul’s plant.

The plant can currently cater for a population of 745, but this proposal would raise that to 1,300, a spokesperson for the Uisce Éireann said on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, in May, a senior official at the company told councillors that it was advancing plans to carry out similar upgrades at its Oldtown plant.

The 20-year wait

Naul was sweltering on Friday afternoon as Ian Lennon cracked a window open in the Séamus Ennis Arts Centre’s cafe on Main Street.

Fortunately there wasn’t any rain. Once that starts, sewage is all that Philip Gaffney can think about, Gaffney says as the two sit at a table. “You haven’t a hope.”

Naul’s plant doesn’t have the capacity to store storm water, a requirement under the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, according to the planning report prepared by consultants Ryan Hanley for Uisce Éireann as part of their application to upgrade the site.

During heavy rain, infiltration is a common issue for the plant, according to an An Bord Pleanála inspector’s report from 2021, which means that groundwater enters the sewers, overloading the system, and leading to the discharge of untreated wastewater.

A deluge of water will carry the sludge cake through its filters, Lennon says. “It overflows the weir, and it goes straight into the river then.”

Gaffney whips out his phone to show untreated discharge flowing into the Delvin after a downpour. “When I’m on holidays, and it’s raining, right? My first thought is: ‘Oh Jesus, the sewage,’” he says.

This has been a prominent issue for seven years. But the trouble with the plant’s capacity goes back to the early 2000s.

At that stage, the plant was able to service a population of 400 people, Lennon says. 

But it had already hit that limit when, in November 2005, Fingal County Council granted developer Brian O’Farrell permission to build 80 houses for an estate later referred to as Delvin Banks.

One of the conditions in this approval by the council said that the plant wasn’t able to cater for the development, and the permanent upgrade works would be expected to take five years.

But, the council would carry out interim upgrades to facilitate the lands, with the direct cost of these works to be covered by the developer, the condition said.

Work couldn’t go ahead unless the applicant entered an agreement with the Water Services Department, it continued, to which O’Farrell’s company, Headland Homes agreed to pay the council’s department €1,450 per unit built.

Construction began in 2006. But the recession stalled the development, with the estate only being completed in 2014, according to CS Consultants’ website.

As of 2023, Naul’s capacity was at 650, according to an Uisce Éireann report for its second quarter of that same year, with the village population as of 2022, being 684, according to CSO statistics.

But, according to the Naul local area plan, adopted in 2011, and extended in 2016, no development was permitted to proceed in the village until the interim works boosted the plant’s capacity to a population of 1,000. 

New developments would only be able to connect onto the foul drainage network after those works were finished.

The local area plan didn’t achieve much before it expired, Gaffney said. “They were gonna upgrade the sewage. They didn’t.”

Stalling housing

Of the 16 wastewater-treatment facilities across Fingal, five catering for its rural villages are the only ones at capacity as of 24 June.

As of April 2025, Naul’s capacity increased from 650 in 2023 to 745, according to the Ryan Hanley planning report prepared for Uisce Éireann’s planning application.

Meanwhile, Ballyboghill can serve 600, while Oldtown can take 500, Turvey cottages 51 and Newtown 20, according to Uisce Éireann’s 2023 report for its second quarter.

This has been a recurring item on the agenda for councillors at the Balbriggan/Rush-Lusk/Swords area committee, which covers all five plants.

Back at the area committee meeting on 10 April, Labour Councillor Corina Johnston tabled a motion asking Uisce Éireann when it would deliver upgrades to the plant in Oldtown, in accordance with Fingal’s Development Plan for 2023 to 2029.

Oldtown’s residents had been dealing with a plant at capacity for a number of years, Johnston said. “This is obviously impacting on any new developments in the area.”

There was a demand for housing throughout Fingal’s rural areas, but this was being held up by the slow pace of upgrades, independent Councillor Cathal Boland said. 

“We have to demand that Irish Water get the finger out and delivers. Delivers not only for Oldtown. We’ve the same problems in the Naul,” Boland said.

There are houses with planning permissions out in Naul which can’t be built, he said, “because Irish Water can’t give a connection opportunity”.

After the motion was agreed, the council’s chief executive, AnnMarie Farrelly, agreed to write to Uisce Éireann, which responded the following month.

In an email, sent on 14 May, John Noone, an elected representatives support desk analyst with Uisce Éireann said it is advancing a project to increase the wastewater treatment capacity at its Oldtown plant.

They were at the stage of detailed designs and seeking statutory approval, after which they would look for a contractor to carry out the works, he said.

Noone said Uisce Éireann expected this to be completed by mid-2025 at which stage they would be able to give a timescale for the full project.

Better days ahead

Naul’s own upgrades were greenlit back in May 2021, according to the council’s website, as part of Uisce Éireann’s Small Towns and Villages Growth Programme.

The upgrades in Oldtown are being carried out under a separate programme, a spokesperson for the state company said on Tuesday.

As Ian Lennon and Philip Gaffney crossed the border into Meath on Friday, they spotted the Uisce Éireann planning application sign posted by the blue front gates to the Naul treatment facility.

The notice had been erected the previous day, Lennon said.

It said Uisce Éireann wanted permission to upgrade the existing Naul plant, installing a new preliminary treatment, sludge thickener, a flood protection berm, an oil interceptor, and tanks for stormwater storage, aeration, attenuation, and two for secondary settlement.

The application also proposed the realignment of the inlet sewer, and the demolition of its existing screening, settlement tank, sludge pumping station and sludge holding tank.

A planning report, prepared by Ryan Hanley engineering consultants as part of the application said that its existing capacity was for a population of 745, and that it was currency exceeding the conditions of the existing certificate of authorisation for discharging treated effluent into the river.

That certificate is valid for a population of 500, the report said.

But, these upgrades are proposing that works at the Naul will increase the current treatment capacity to 1,300, it says, and which will facilitate Naul’s growth over the next 25 years.

A spokesperson for Uisce Éireann said that these works will cost €7 million. 

“The project will significantly improve the quality of treated effluent discharges to safeguard wastewater capacity and ensure the [wastewater treatment plant] is compliant with regulatory discharge,” they said.

When asked whether there was a timeline for upgrade works at the remaining three rural plants, the spokesperson said of the 300 towns and villages considered as candidates for funding under the Small Towns and Villages Growth Programme, it has 39 confirmed projects.

Naul is the only current project in Fingal, they said. Ballyboghill and Turvey aren’t included in the 2025 to 2029 Investment Plan.