Dr. Tom Ryan:

I thank the Deputy for his comments. I will address the Leixlip issue and then turn to my colleagues on the specific issues around infringement and the speed of investment and remediation of the issues that are the subject of those proceedings.

We were with the committee after, and in fact during, the issues in Leixlip. There are strong commonalities between what happened then and what happened in the two incidents in Ballymore Eustace and Gorey, where there were some failures to escalate or late escalation. One of the main differences though was that in Leixlip, because of the time factor, there was an opportunity to respond, risk assess and put in place what was a very significant boil water notice on over 600,000 people at the time, and all the inconvenience it caused people. There was that opportunity to put in place measures that help people protect themselves. The difference here is similar issues arose but they were not escalated until after the incidents, so unsafe drinking water was put into the system and then we had the illnesses we saw in Gorey. Thus they were very similar issues with different outcomes.

I will turn to my colleague, Mr. Byrne, to talk about wastewater and where we are in terms of the pace of infrastructural developments.