Mr. Martin Hehir:

The Government published the national adaptation framework in January of this year and a decided at the end of March that adaptation frameworks for 12 areas would have to be produced by various Departments and public bodies. We have responsibility for water quality and water services infrastructure and expect to produce the framework by the end of September 2019. We are looking at weather events over the past 20 years and using modelling to consider how such events are likely to change over the next 20 or 30 years. Based on that research we are prioritising what we consider to be the most serious issues and using those to set priorities for Irish Water and the rural water sector. That will encompass how their investment programme works, how resilience can be improved, where assets are located and how they can be climate proofed. Irish Water has been building those factors into its business processes. We envisage a public consultation of approximately six weeks before next summer, and that will be based on a draft plan.