Mr. Gerard O'Leary:

The directive came into force in 1991. We were given responsibility for drinking water and urban wastewater in 2008. In regard to drinking water, during that period, through an intervention funded by the Department of the Environment e.coli, has been reduced in public water supply by 90%. That intervention involved the putting in place of a chlorine monitoring alarm - which is approximately 7,000 for every public water supply - which was very difficult to do. Some of the issues that we are dealing with now, such as trihalomethanes, require serious investment. In regard to urban wastewater, every year we have published reports setting out where the issues are in relation to urban wastewater, to the point of frustration. The EPA is not the economic regulator. In our last report, for the first time after almost 20 years of publishing reports on urban wastewater, we mapped investment in our wastewater infrastructure. That report is publicly available. There has been a huge drop in investment in that area. With respect, enforcement is not the issue. We have prosecuted on four or five occasions where there have been breaches. Systematic failure leads to infringement cases by the European Commission, such as the one announced today. The information about which I am speaking dates back to 2013. It is information that we have made available to the general public. Again, with respect, the information has been available, and not only since yesterday or today. We can deal with situations of kit malfunction but in situations where a kit has not even been installed it is a funding issue.