Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As Deputy Darragh O'Brien said this is having an enormous impact on people right across the six local authority areas affected. Deputy Breathnach is correct that any boil water notice is wrong. This is the single largest boil water notice we have ever had. It is six times greater than the total number of people affected by both boil water notices last year. It is also important that part of this has happened in a plant which in recent times has had significant upgrades, such as a new plant in 2014.

I am concerned that it was stated that the November incident is not a plant failure.

I completely accept from all the information we have received that there were two very different sets of incidents in October and November. If the witnesses are telling me that yesterday's event was not a plant failure, and given the fact that it is highly likely we will have a similar volume of rain in a short period of time at some point in the future, it seems that the plant ultimately is not designed right if it cannot cope with what was not the most exceptional of rain events. I will come back to that.

I know that Mr. Ó Coigligh has to come in and do the batting for the single utility, but on the basis of what Mr. Gleeson said, even if one had a single utility, that would not have made any difference to yesterday's incident because one is talking about the plant functioning properly. While we are very keen to have discussions around the single utility, I do not see how people responding to text messages, the failure to put in the shut-down system or yesterday's events would in any way be affected by a single utility or not. That is a separate issue.

I am still not clear on the alarm, so somebody needs to explain who the duty operator is. I am not looking for the person's name, but is it a member of Fingal County Council staff or is it a private operator? Was this individual asleep when he or she got the text message?