The boat that transports Dublin's annual load of 300,000 tonnes of sewage sludge from Ringsend to the Nose of Howth, where it has been dumped at sea for decades, is to be decommissioned next May.
Recently dubbed by one tabloid newspaper as a "Ship of Shame", the steel-hulled MV Sir Joseph Bazalgette - named after the engineer who designed Ireland's first sewerage system - is likely to be sold for scrap.
Under an EU directive on municipal waste water treatment, all sea dumping of sewage sludge was to end on December 31st. Technically, therefore, Ireland is in breach of this directive as the Bazalgette will continue to ply its trade until April.
Mr Louis Kilmartin, principal engineering adviser at the Department of the Environment, said yesterday that work was well advanced on the construction of a new sludge facility at Dublin Corporation's Ringsend sewage treatment plant.
This facility, now expected to be commissioned in April, will allow the corporation to dry the sewage sludge, producing some 13,000 tonnes of organic material which could be used as compost instead of leaving it to accumulate on the bed of the Irish Sea.
Meanwhile, the main contract to provide "enhanced secondary treatment" of the capital's sewage is going out to tender. This £200 million scheme, officially known as the Dublin Bay Project, is intended to clean up the waters of the inner bay.
The scheme is by far the largest single project in a six-year programme to upgrade water and sewage treatment plants at an overall cost of £960 million - significantly higher than the £600 million estimate in the National Development Plan (1994-1999).
Announcing the latest allocation of £275 million for this year - of which the EU is contributing £194 million - the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, said one of its aims was to provide all major urban centres with modern treatment plants. He noted that the allocation was 50 per cent higher than last year's and more than double the expenditure on water and sewerage services in 1996. This would enable work to start on 50 new schemes, in addition to the 64 which are already under construction.
These include the Dublin project and upgraded sewage treatment schemes for Cork, Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Dundalk - all designed to meet Ireland's obligations under the EU directive. Some 25 schemes are expected to be completed during the year.
The 1999 allocation includes £15 million towards the Serviced Land Initiative - announced after the publication of the Bacon report on house prices last April - which is designed to accelerate the supply of sites for an estimated 40,000 housing units.
It also includes more than £28 million for further expansion of the Rural Water Programme and £5 million to fund new measures under a three-year programme to support the development of rural towns and villages announced in the Budget last month.
Work is expected to start this year on the Monaghan and Roscrea water schemes as well as a new treatment plant for Ballina, Co Mayo. Water conservation is also a key part of the programme.
Mr Dempsey conceded that Ireland was likely to receive "considerably less money from the EU than we're getting at the moment" for water, sewerage and road schemes. "We will be fighting to maximise what we get because there is still a major infrastructural deficit."
Partly because of the danger that EU funding will run out, the Minister is strongly emphasising the need for greater private sector involvement in public works and has set up a special unit in his Department to pursue the potential of Public Private Partnerships.
