Decision on River Shannon Water Extraction Scheme Delayed by Up to One Year
Tuesday 7 July 2026
An Coimisiún Pleanála has postponed its planning decision on Uisce Éireann’s multi-billion euro Water Supply Project for the Eastern and Midlands Region.
An Coimisiún Pleanála (ACP) has postponed its planning decision on Uisce Éireann’s proposal to extract water from the River Shannon by up to one year.
The proposed Water Supply Project for the Eastern and Midlands Region, which is the largest ever water project in Irish history, seeks to extract over 300 million litres of water daily from the River Shannon to supply the eastern part of the country.
ACP was originally due to issue a decision on the Strategic Infrastructure Development (SID) application on 2 July. However, the commission has written to all involved parties to confirm that it now intends to determine the application before 2 July 2027. In the correspondence, the commission stated it will take all open steps to ensure a determination is made before that date.
Uisce Éireann submitted the planning application last December. While the statutory objective is to determine such strategic infrastructure cases within 18 weeks of lodging, ACP informed parties that this timeline is not possible due to the need for further consideration of the case. The project has an estimated cost of between €4.6 billion and €5.9 billion.