NI Water to receive additional £31m in funding

NI Water is being allocated an extra £31m in funding, the infrastructure minister has announced.

John O'Dowd said £19.5m would go towards tackling the issues with the waste water system, which has been holding up a number of infrastructure projects - including building new homes.

The money is coming from the Stormont mini-budget known as a monitoring round.

O'Dowd also allocated money to fully fund the department's winter service, which includes gritting the roads.

In addition, almost £19m is being allocated for essential and structural road maintenance and street lighting work.

Translink also received £12m.

“Translink and NI Water will benefit from a total of £43m between them," the minister said.

"Given the well documented issues around wastewater constraints, I have taken the decision to allocate half of my department’s capital allocation to NI Water so that we can help unlock the housing pressures."

Housebuilding in Northern Ireland fell to a 60-year low last year, partially due to restrictions on new water connections.

Plans for an estimated 19,000 homes are being held up due to the restrictions.

Last week, representatives from the utility provider warned Stormont that capacity problems would get worse without additional long-term funding.

The infrastructure committee was told NI Water is facing a significant gap in funding - both in the day-to-day running of operations and on the longer term capital side.

NI Water director of finance Ronan Larkin said there was a £23m funding gap between what they needed to run the service and what was available.

On the long-term capital spending plan, he said there was a £266m gap in funding or a shortfall of about 45%.