NEARLY A QUARTER of eligible homes did not register their septic tank for mandatory inspections ahead of the government’s headline.
Figures released by the Local Government Management Agency show that 373,954 homes had registered their tanks or wastewater treatment systems for mandatory inspections ahead of Friday night’s deadline.
That figures corresponds to about 76.6 per cent of the total number of homes who indicated their eligibility for the mandatory inspections in their disclosures for Census 2011.
The inspections are required under laws introduced following a European Court of Justice ruling that Ireland was in breach of European law by not implementing a directive on wastewater management dating from 1975.
The figures show Dublin City had the lowest compliance rate – only 102 tanks were registered for inspections, while the Census records showed 1,857 households as having systems eligible for inspection. This suggests a compliance rate of only 5.49 per cent.
Outside of the city centre, the three other Dublin local authorities had poor compliance rates, with South Dublin (52.64 per cent), Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown (58.07 per cent) and Fingal (58.67 per cent) at the bottom of the table.
At the other end of the table, two council areas confounded expectations by having more homes register than were indicated as eligible under the Census.
The Cork City Council area was thought to have only 470 homes eligible for inspection, but 496 homes registered – a theoretical compliance rate of 105.53 per cent.
Nearby Kerry County Council had a similar response: the Census showed 28,016 eligible homes, but 28,153 registered, giving a compliance rate of 100.49 per cent.
The results in those two areas may be a result of increased housing occupation in those areas, meaning dwellings which were not inhabited during Census night in April 2011 now became eligible for inspection.
Environment minister Phil Hogan had yesterday described the compliance rate for the septic tank registrations as “almost 80 per cent”.
The legislation underpinning the registration regime provides for fines of up to €5,000 for householders not to register for the mandatory inspections. In December Ireland was fined €2 million by the European Court of Justice for its delay in introducing the appropriate rules.
The figures below show the number of registrations as of this morning, and may include some homes which registered over the weekend.
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