Ms Kate Gannon:

Mr. Gleeson, can I come in there? To follow up on that for Senator Fitzpatrick, as Mr. Gleeson outlined, we have capacity in the vast majority of towns and cities. Irish Water has distributed water and wastewater registers that will indicate where they are to people. They have been issued to the local authorities, the EPA, the CRU, the Department and approved housing bodies. We are trying to direct people to where capacity is immediately available. We also have growth programmes running in our capital investment plan, such as the networks extension programme and the local network reinforcements programme, as well as the local housing activation fund that specifically targets existing bottlenecks in our networks. Where we have local constraints we work with developers and our customers to try to find local solutions while the long-term capital programme is being delivered. As Mr. Gleeson said, it can take three to five years, but in practically all instances we can find local solutions, such as surface water removal, on-site storage and attenuation and so forth. To put that in context, in 2020 we were in a position to approve connection offers for 34,579 homes and we were only in a position to refuse 125 connection offers for homes. I fully understand that sometimes it can take a little time to come to a local solution, but the numbers are that, in 2020, 34,579 homes received a connection offer and we were not in a position to facilitate connection offers to 125 homes. We do everything we possibly can to facilitate and find local solutions.