Mr. Jerry Grant:

Lessons were most certainly learned from that incident. We have subsequently dealt with some very serious issues, including Storm Ophelia. We had a major problem in Listowel. We absolutely did learn that we need to get our crisis management team up and running earlier. This is now the case. The elected members are now the first point of contact and we value their contribution. There was not enough information early enough in Drogheda because we were not collecting it.

With regard to recent incidents, such as that requiring a boil water notice at Vartry, the Ophelia incident and the Listowel incident, and many others because we have incidents all the time, we have a much better communications arrangement. We have local liaison engineers, for example, in each local authority area for an event. There was a gap in regard to the event the Deputy raised. We closed that gap only on the Monday, which was too late. I accept that.

With regard to the emergency response, our tanker availability has improved as a result of experience. I refer to the one tonne containers that we drop around the place. We now have a plan for the use of generators. There is bottled water available to distribute.