Rural Water Programme

The Council's Rural Water Programme includes:

1. Group Water Schemes
2. Small Public Water and Sewerage Schemes
3. Grants for Individual Well Water Installations  

Group Water Schemes

A group water scheme provides a private water supply to 2 or more houses by means of a common or shared source of supply and distribution system.

The Council assists groups by working in partnership with them and by:-

• Providing advice and guidance on the formation and operation of group schemes
• Providing technical advice on source and supply issues, distribution networks, water quality and treatment, scheme design etc
• Enabling groups to take a water supply from public mains where this is feasible.
• Providing advice and assistance on tender procurement and evaluation
• Grant aiding group schemes up to 85% of the approved cost, subject to a limit of €6,475 per house
• Supervision of construction standards
• Providing an annual subsidy towards the operation and maintenance costs incurred on the scheme by the group.

Small Public Water and Sewerage Schemes

A small public water and/or sewerage scheme consists of capital works on the improvement and/or extension of public water and/or sewerage schemes where the cost of the works does not exceed €1000,000 .  The Council funds 25% of the cost of such projects and it recoups the remaining 75% from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, within the confines of an annual allocation of capital funding.

Grants for Individual Well Water Installation

The objective of this grant scheme is to assist households dependent on private individual water supplies who are incurring capital expenditure to:

• Provide a piped supply of water for domestic purposes  or
• Remedy serious deficiencies in an existing supply of water for domestic purposes

Where the supply of water concerned is a supply other than from a public or group scheme and the house concerned is more than 7 years old and is occupied.

The grant is at the rate of 75% of the approved cost subject to a maximum of €2,031.58.

Well Grant Application Form.