Mr. Michael O'Leary:

Looking at the spend, I would make a general comment to start with that when Irish Water initially started out on the capital investment programme, by necessity the focus had to be on the drinking water side and the public health issues arising from same. That was the primary focus at the start.

As Mr. Gallen alluded to in his submission, the progress that has been made on drinking water is evident from the fact that, by the end of 2019, there will only be approximately 30 schemes left on the EPA's remedial action list. That pendulum is now very much swinging towards the wastewater spend. The spend on wastewater is increasing yearly. By 2020 or 2021, the spend on wastewater will exceed that for drinking water. The projections for 2022 show that what we will be spending on wastewater will be nearly the same as the total spent on the full capital investment programme last year. Therefore, right up to 2024-----