Mr. Micheál O'Mahony:

We have a classification system which looks at monthly samples for a three-year window, and we stand back and look at those 36 samples and ask what is the general status in that area. That is one action we take. If we have a downgrading, as I have already described, we follow-up there.

If, during that three years, it is normally level - that is, if it is normally 200, 200 - and then it is 3,000, we call that a spike or an out-of-class result. We conduct a specific follow-up of that in so far as we can to try to figure out why it happened. There might have been very heavy rainfall on that day. There might have been a particular peak in slurry spreading. There might have been a storm water overflow from a waste water treatment plan. We try to see if we can figure out what caused that spike and whether it is part of the normal part of that bay or an anomalous result that does not represent those waters. We have an out-of-class follow-up but it does not extend as far as prosecuting the polluter.