Dr. Michelle Minihan:

It was not that it was doing works; it was investigating an exceedance from the sludge discharge, which is a discharge licensed by Kildare County Council. There had been an exceedance of the torpidity limit that is permitted for the sludge treatment plant. Therefore, the first approach Irish Water did when investigating it was to make sure that everything at the front end of the process, or the water treatment process, was working satisfactorily before it determined there was a problem with the back end of the process, or the sludge treatment process. In investigating the front end of the water treatment process in response to a torpidity exceedance at the sludge treatment plant, Irish Water uncovered the incident that had occurred on the night of 20 August into 21 August.