Dr. Michelle Minihan:

We would have called out slippage in general, and Leixlip is part of that.

I will move to Deputy Ó Broin's question on the audit recommendations, five of which were not implemented. His question was manifold. Some of the recommendations relate specifically to the old plant but a number relate to the plant as a whole. The key recommendation that Irish Water should ensure that there is automatic switchover between the duty and standby polyelectrolyte dosing pumps had not happened. Another was that operators respond to the alarms. As we noted earlier, the automatic shut-off in the event of operators failing to respond to alarms was implemented only in the new plant, which was where the March issue arose, and not extended to all the plant. Our recommendation clearly called out the need for it to be across the plant. However, as Dr. Ryan indicated, we do not believe that was deliberate but rather was a misinterpretation.

The other actions relate to the plant as a whole and have seen slippage. Our audit report of October asked Irish Water to reconsider the dates by which those works would be undertaken and, as we have already indicated, a response is awaited on that.