Mr. Feargal Ó Coigligh:

I will start with the Department's point of view. The Senator is absolutely right that the provision of water services is critical to housing delivery. It is stated in the Housing for All document that we will not build the houses unless we provide the water services. The Government is providing €4.5 billion for investment in water services over the period of the plan. That is significant investment. Mr. Gleeson will speak to this in more detail, but there are a couple of positive developments happening here and it speaks to the strength of Irish Water as a national utility. Irish Water has for the first time produced wastewater capacity registers and water capacity registers, so there is clear sight to all involved of where there is sufficient capacity in the system, or about to roll into the system, to facilitate the development of housing. That feeds into the local authority development plan process. There should be agreement between local authority ambition and the strategic approach to planning and the ability of Irish Water to service that development.

One will always hear stories about where development is held up because of a lack of capacity or some delays. I was speaking to Mr. Gleeson in recent days and Irish Water has some powerful, graphic information on its ability to service the housing demand. When one looks at it as a whole, the vast majority of development is serviced, and in a timely way. Perhaps Mr. Gleeson will speak to that point.