Mr. John McLaughlin:

I thank the committee for the invitation. Even though we might not be speaking much, we will take the lessons learned back to our system. I do not want to go over earlier issues again but for local authorities and the CCMA, the top priority is always public health and public safety in everything we do, not just water. We have an escalation process and well-established systems. We appreciate that further investigation is happening. We will take the lessons learned by Irish Water, the EPA and so on seriously, and apply them around the country. There is no doubt that our role in water services has changed over the past eight years and that has been well covered.

I will go back to the question of County Donegal in particular. I might comment on that with regard to Housing for All. There is no doubt that we have capacity in certain locations for water and wastewater but we hear over and over again in our council chamber that we are driving people into towns where there is capacity, when they want to live elsewhere. In many villages and towns, we consequently hear that they end up closing schools or reducing teacher numbers, have reduced numbers for GAA teams and so on. These are practical, social issues to think of throughout society. What will our public policy response to that be? That is a wider issue. We are now working on an action plan for the new Housing for All scheme. It was welcome for small towns and villages in Donegal when it was talked about last year. Irish Water and our own water services and planning staff worked well together to come up with those lists and prioritise what was needed to tackle something that was probably considered to be a poor relation in the water system for many years, with some legacy issues.

To address the scale in Donegal, €8.6 million is the likely grant. Those small-scale works could take several years. That includes the first 11 on the list. Another six have no sewers at all but the need is great. That feeds into some other contributions.

There is no doubt that we will need to work closely again with Irish Water on Housing for All and the practicalities of delivering on the Government's programme. There is much work to be done in the locations that people want to live. That will require investment. I have no doubt that we can do it, provided the money is there. Mr. Gleeson used the phrase "boots on the ground". There is time to do that if we start now and get the plans correct.