Planning nightmare leaves young family in Co Carlow without a toilet

A young couple’s first home purchase has turned into a nightmare after they were cut off from sewerage and water networks upon moving in, and were also refused planning permission for a septic tank by An Coimisiún Pleanála.

Zoe and Kevin O’Donnell, who have a two-year-old son, bought their seven-bedroom, four-bathroom detached house in Milltown, Co Carlow, at auction last year.

They paid less than €100,000 for it after a receiver had been appointed over the house, which was owned by Stephen Murphy.

For nine months, they have lived without a sewerage system, forcing them to travel to a service station 20 minutes away every evening to access a toilet. “We can’t potty train our son because we don’t have any sewerage,” Zoe told The Carlow Nationalist.

Due to vagueness in the contract at auction, the couple were unaware when they bought their home that the sewerage and water pipe connections were owned by Milltown Developments, a business of Stephen Murphy, which sits behind the property.

“With auction properties, there is a risk that you only get what’s given to you on the contract documents,” said Zoe. “The more vague the contract documents are, the cheaper the house on the market.

“We were aware that, you know, there could be problems. That was okay.”

However, they didn’t anticipate access to water and sewerage pipes to be a problem. The house was inhabited by short-term tenants until the sale, and the couple had checked with the tenants that everything was fine with the house.

But upon moving into their property, they discovered that access to the neighbouring business’s water and sewerage system had been blocked.

Nonetheless, she and Kevin moved on and began carrying out engineering assessments to form a planning permission application for a septic tank. After several months, they secured a connection to water mains. They were so optimistic, they bought the septic tank ahead of approval.

Given that the 50-year-old property would be rendered useless without a sewerage system, Carlow Co Council approved the couple’s application in November 2025. However, this was swiftly appealed by Stephen Murphy and Margaret Murphy.

Their objection to the septic tank was that the house site was too small to contain one, according to the 2021 Code of Practice for Domestic Waste Water Treatment Systems, such that it posed a contamination risk to his neighbouring property.

“We were meticulous in selecting a site assessor that was associated with the EPA. Before we even put in the planning permission, we got all the tests done … the percolation test and hydro-geological test.

The engineer was satisfied that all of those passed and that there would be no environmental or human health risk. The council was satisfied with that, too, and, I suppose, they’re qualified to assess that as well,” Zoe countered.

An Coimisiún Pleanála delivered its decision on 14 April 2026 to refuse Zoe and Kevin permission to install a septic tank. It said that, given the size constraints of the site, it ‘could not be satisfied that the proposed development would not pose an unacceptable risk to public health and to the receiving environment’.

Zoe and Kevin now have to decide whether to judicially review the commission’s decision at High Court level or to continue with their current “miserable” way of living. Rather than being embittered with their neighbours, they blame an “inflexible planning system” for what they are going through.

“We’re a young family, as I said. We’ve put our life savings into buying our first home. Life is expensive; we don’t have enough money to rent somewhere, never mind move on somewhere else. We have to stay here, but we would obviously like to have a reasonable quality of life.

“It would be nice to get some sort of direction from the council for a family in our situation, especially when we followed all the correct processes,” said Zoe.

The Nationalist contacted Mr Murphy for a comment, but he declined.