Minister Browne announces €1.2 million funding for Wexford rural water services

The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, James Browne TD, today (22July 2025) announced an allocation of €1.2million in funding for Wexford under the multi-annual Rural Water Programme 2024-2026.

The funding will be made to Blackstairs Group Water Scheme to address leakage reduction and water conservation. 1,114 households will benefit from this investment. Announcing the investment, Minister Browne said: “This funding provides much-needed capital investment to rural water services in the county. It is significant funding that will make a real difference to the 1114 households in the Blackstairs Group Water Scheme. The Government is working hard to fund improvements to water services across the country, including services to rural areas that do not have access to Uisce Éireann services. This announcement today is very much part of that commitment and will support rural communities to thrive as places to live and work.” The Minister has approved funding of almost €74 million for 291 individual capital projects across the country. The funding is being made available primarily to Group Water Schemes to support areas such as water source protection, compliance with water quality standards, leakage reduction and expanding the coverage of piped water supplies from the public (Uisce Éireann) network. As part of the application process for this funding, local authorities were asked to work with group water schemes and their representative body the National Federation of Group Water Schemes. An assessment process was then completed, which included a critical evaluation by an independent Expert Panel of the applications received. The funding announced today is in addition to previous support, including: Over €45 million for seven individual projects for waste water collection and treatment needs for villages and settlements without access to public waste water services announced in December 2023; and Over €47 million for 256 projects announced under the multi-annual programme in November 2024. The funding being provided to the Rural Water Sector today is a strong example of the Government’s ongoing investment and commitment to the future social, environmental and economic development of rural Ireland and to investing in water infrastructure.