Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

My question is about the audit of Ballymore Eustace plant. When Irish Water representatives came before this committee, they made the point that there are 800 water treatment plants around the country and that they could not know exactly what was happening in each plant. Ballymore Eustace is the largest water treatment plant in Ireland and serves 750,000 people in the greater Dublin area, Kildare and Meath, as well as businesses.

The fact that the audit of the Ballymore Eustace plant found that chlorine levels were below standard when the facility was operating normally, and that Irish Water was unaware of this until the EPA raised this matter, is a significant finding. In addition, it is significant that the Irish Water’s national disinfectant programme failed to identify this deficiency and that these incidents were not isolated. The audit report states:

It appears that [the] monitoring data was not assessed by Dublin City Council or Irish Water to provide insight into operations at the plant, in particular the issue of intermittent drops in chlorine levels. This identifies a lack of oversight by management in Dublin City Council and Irish Water.

It is a serious issue that the monitoring and data compilation has been done but no one seems to have been assessing the results. If Irish Water had ensured someone was assessing it, that would have been picked up as an issue. Is there any insight into why Irish Water or Dublin City Council did not assess the collected data? This is quite different from the issues Irish Water brought to our attention when it came before this committee.

Will the EPA do a follow-up audit and, if so, when? I note from the audit report that will be an answer in writing from Irish Water on 12 November, however, will there be a follow-up audit at a later point?