Dr. Tom Ryan:

The Deputy raised the specific question of the EPA priorities mentioned in appendix A of our report. He asked why the numbers fluctuate a little bit. There are two main components to that. One is the investment needed to address the legacy of poor infrastructure and to bring it up to standard. There is an investment plan. We talk about the pace of investment and all of that. The other component is operational matters. There will always be ongoing issues in plants which may bring them into or out of compliance. There may be increased pressures on a particular area where an agglomeration increases in size, putting pressure on a plant. Such a plant would then have to be brought up to specification to deal with that capacity. There will always be ongoing regulatory issues there. I emphasise that there is no end point to this. It will require continual investment over decades both to bring the plants up to spec and to maintain an appropriate level of water quality and treatment.