Uisce Éireann’s Planned Shannon—Dublin Pipeline Will Be Ireland’s Biggest Ever Water Project

12th December 2025

Afloat.ie Team

Uisce Éireann says its proposed Water Supply Project Eastern and Midlands Region will abstract a maximum of 2% of the average flow of the River Shannon at Parteen Basin

Uisce Éireann’s proposal to pipe drinking water from the Shannon to Dublin will be Ireland’s largest ever water project.

As RTÉ News reports, the State-owned water utility has announced that it will next week submit a planning application for the pipeline from the Parteen Basin below Lough Derg eastwards to the greater Dublin area.

Uisce Éireann says the project would extract no more than two per cent of the average flow of the River Shannon at Parteen Basin to meet the capital’s water demands.

It’s understood that An Comisiúin Pleanála will open a seven-week statutory public consultation on the €6bn plans — officially the Water Supply Project Eastern and Midlands Region — in early January.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has described the pipeline plan as “an imperative”.

But the proposal faces opposition from the River Shannon Protection Alliance, which highlighted the Parteen Basin’s status as a Special Area of Conservation and questioned the scheme’s economic and environmental impact on the areas through which the pipeline will be routed.

RTÉ News has more on the story HERE.

Published in Shannon Estuary

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