eolas magazine issue 47

Informing Ireland’s decision-makers...

Accelerating the connected digital future Three Ireland’s Ken McGrath Tánaiste

Editor of Debates

Minister of State

Leo Varadkar TD

Anne Maxwell

Ossian Smyth TD

discusses support

reflects on the

talks

for business and

Debates Office’s

cybersecurity

workers

centenary

issue 47 Sep/Oct 21

Future of work and connectivity

•

Cybersecurity

•

Water

€4.95

Public Services 2021

Hybrid event

Creating high performing, innovative organisations

Thursday 14th October ● Dunboyne Castle Hotel / Online

Since the launch of Our Public Service 2020 in December 2017 there has been some real progress in the key areas of promoting innovation, digitising services and improving the development of people and workforce planning. However, no one could have foreseen that 2020 would have brought one of the biggest challenges ever faced — the coronavirus pandemic. It sharply brought into focus the need for public service organisations to be responsive, resilient and agile. Ireland’s public services responded well and quickly to change the way they work to deliver services and meet the needs of citizens. A number of reforms already in place under the on-going public service reform agenda greatly facilitated the rapid response to the challenges emerging from the pandemic — ‘build-to-share’ ICT infrastructure, the progressive digitalisation of services, a streamlined and centralised Government procurement system, a move to shared-services — as well as centralisation of strategic HR capability.

As we move towards the recovery phase of the pandemic, continuing innovation in our public services is more important now than ever before. Consultation has begun on the successor framework for OPS2020.

Key topics covered:

Speakers include:

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Final progress report of Our Public Service 2020: Innovating for a post-Covid society;

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The next phase of innovation: Our Public Service 2030?

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Anticipatory Innovation: Shaping the future;

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All change: planning for the future mobile workforce;

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Looking at the realities of automation and technology enabled solutions;

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Sectoral update: health; justice; education; local government;

Focusing on the service user – becoming citizen-centric; The delivery of healthcare in Ireland; Integrating innovation into operational and strategic planning; Exploiting the power of research to mitigate the social impacts of Covid-19;

Building resilience into our public service organisations; Large scale reform of policing in Ireland; Embracing innovation and technology to transform the delivery of services;

Can we make hybrid working a reality?

Educating our children and young people both now and in the future;

Best practice case studies.

Laura Mahoney Head of Public Service Reform Department of Public Expenditure and Reform

Paul Reid Chief Executive Officer Health Service Executive Dr Shawna Coxon Deputy Commissioner An Garda Síochána

John McKeon Secretary General Department of Social Protection

Professor Maggie Cusack President Munster Technological University

Professor Joanna Chataway, UCL and Principal Lead Investigator International Public Policy Observatory

Ann Doherty Chief Executive Cork City Council

Dr Piret Tõnurist Innovation Lead OECD

Joe Saunders CEO Irish Local Development Network

Sponsored by

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www.publicsectorreform.eolasmagazine.ie

registration@eolasmagazine.ie

Safeguarding our water for our future

Irish Water: Delivering a safe and resilient water supply

water report

“Our primary approach is always going to be to drive down demand through leakage reduction and water conservation,” Grant says. To that end, Irish Water has its National Leakage Reduction Programme and the Water Stewardship Programme, where it works with business to industry to promote conservation.

Concluding, Conlon says: “The transformation of our public water supplies will take time and investment over many decades. The plan is required to ensure that we address current issues and future challenges in a uniform way.

Mairéad Conlon

Miriam Grant

Miriam Grant and Mairéad Conlon of Irish Water’s Asset Planning Section discuss how the 25-year National Water Resources Plan will deliver a safe, secure, sustainable, and resilient water supply to each of its customers. us is to prevent this level of service to customers worsening as our infrastructure ages. Aside from that, we also face several future challenges to supplies. The population is growing, over the next 25 years we expect to see an extra 1.2 million customers on the network, so it is important that we plan for that. We have new environmental regulations on water extractions to ensure that Ireland is compliant with the Water Framework Directive and to protect and improve the environment.”

Irish Water’s asset base consists of roughly 530 water resource zones, 700 water treatment plants, over 1,000 individual extraction points and about 63,000 km of water mains. At present, over half of these resources do not provide the sufficient level of service.

The key objective of the National Water Resource Plan is to give a one-in-50 level of service to all customers, performance levels tracked by the number of unwanted water supply interruptions in a number of years. The plan is to ensure Irish Water has supplied all customers, no matter where they are, with security of supply of highquality water. The three pillars that the plan is built upon are Lose Less, Use Less and Supply Smarter, aimed leakage reduction, water conservation and better water supply routes through initiatives such as rationalisation.

“While our customers mightn’t notice this because we have the supply on a day-today basis, we really struggle when we get into periods of high demand, like during dry weather events in the summer and in the winter when we have extreme weather events like a freeze thaw event,” Conlon explains. “The main challenge for

“The National Water Resources Plan is not just a plan, it has an Strategic Environmental Assessment and an associated Natura Impact Statement that goes with it, and as part of that there is a consultation process, which allows full transparency and public participation in our plans. We ask for stakeholder feedback into the plan and take it on board in finalising it.

“This allows the public to get involved, to understand what is happening and the level of risk and to ensure that we can develop a robust plan going forward into the future.”

E: nwrp@water.ie W: www.water.ie Twitter: @irishwater Facebook: IrishWaterUisceÉireann LinkedIn: Irish Water

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“There’s a real focus on the environmental impact and how we need to understand the hydrological yield of all our sources,” Grant says. “That is to ensure that we will have enough water available to meet growing demand over the next 25 years. Fundamentally, it is a plan that supports economic growth in Ireland but also safeguards the environment and takes account of the Water Framework Directive, the River Basin Management Plan and the standards that have been established.”

“It is the first such plan to be developed in Ireland and it allows us to prioritise delivery of solutions and ensure that we minimise environmental impacts. It will also allow Irish Water to meet the requirements of the new environmental and drinking water legislation. Key parts of the plan are an understanding of the supply-demand balance and that feeds into us understanding the level of service

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Safeguarding our water for our future

Water capital projects Currently, alongside the National Leakage Reduction Programme, there are several major water and wastewater projects being undertaken by Irish Water across Ireland.

NATIONAL LEAKAGE REDUCTION PROGRAMME

CORK LOWER HARBOUR MAIN DRAINAGE PROJECT

Each day, Ireland loses 40 per cent of its treated water through leaks. These leaks can be difficult to detect among a vast and ageing pipe network. In cooperation with local authorities, the National Leakage Reduction programme is aimed at fixing 1,500 leaks each month to deliver a more reliable water supply, improve water quality, reduce high levels of leakage, and create new, individual supply connections. While the national leakage rate was 46 per cent in 2018, that is set to be reduced to 38 per cent by the end of 2021, saving 166 million litres of water each day.

The Cork Lower Harbour Main Drainage project is intended to provide enhanced wastewater treatment by establishing the new wastewater treatment plant (WwTP) at Shanbally, County Cork (operational since 2016), as well as repairing and expanding the sewer network to connect additional harbour areas to this plant. While in 2015 the equivalent of 40,000 wheelie bins of raw sewage was discharged into Cork harbour each day, this figure has been reduced to 10,000.

ELIMINATING RAW SEWAGE

Since 2014, Irish Water has built new wastewater infrastructure across 16 towns and villages, eliminating half of the total raw sewage discharged into Ireland's marine environment each day. With an objective of eliminating the remaining half, Irish Water has committed to the construction of wastewater treatment plants and network infrastructure to adequately treat wastewater before it is safely discharged. As such, having completed projects in counties Cork, Donegal, Dublin, Galway, Kerry, Mayo and Waterford, there are a significant number of projects in the pipeline in counties Clare, Cork, Donegal, Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Louth, Mayo, Wexford and

RINGSEND WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT UPGRADE PROJECT

Currently, the Ringsend Wastewater Treatment Plant provides for over 40 per cent of Ireland's wastewater treatment capacity.

However, the plant is currently overloaded and in contravention of the EU's Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive. As such, a major upgrade to the Ringsend WwTP is underway. Ultimately, by 2025, the project is intended to deliver the capacity to treat wastewater for an equivalent of 2.4 million people while meeting standards set by the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive. The four key elements of the project are: providing additional secondary treatment capacity with nutrient reduction; upgrading 24 existing secondary treatment tanks; providing a new phosphorous recovery process; and expanding the plant's sludge treatment facilities.

LEE ROAD WATER TREATMENT PLANT PROJECT

The existing Lee Road Water Treatment Plant (WTP) provides around 70 per cent of Cork city's treated water supply. With an investment of €40 million, the Lee Road WTP project will upgrade facilities.

Construction of a new WTP on the existing site is underway and once completed will safeguard Cork's water supply.

The total wastewater generated in the Greater Dublin Area (GDA) is projected to increase by over 50 per cent by 2050. As such, the Greater Dublin Drainage (GDD) project will develop a new regional WwTP and associated infrastructure to serve the GDA. Once operational the GDD project will have the capacity to provide wastewater treatment for the equivalent of 500,000 people.

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Special reports in the next issue of eolas

Justice • Housing • Irish Cities Forum • Climate: COP26 Each issue of eolas will cover a wide range of issues, sectors and regular features including: • • • •

Public sector Economy Public affairs Energy & environment

• • • •

Business Education Cross-border Media profile

• • • •

Third sector People Technology Politics

• • • •

Health Criminal justice Transport Talent management

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Email: sam.tobin@eolasmagazine.ie www.eolasmagazine.ie