Mr. Noel Byrne:

Certainly, misconnections are an issue in the networks where sewage is collected and is brought to the wastewater treatment plants. Irish Water investigates these misconnections, particularly where they give rise to issues, such as bathing water or water quality issues. There are ongoing investigations. The drainage area plan assessments are looking at the full network catchments and the sewerage plan in the city. They look at each element to see if there are misconnections and to find them. They then make sure that those connections are put into the sewerage and not into the clean water drains, if it is the case that that is happening. If the Deputy is interested in any of the drainage area plans, I suggest that he should speak to Irish Water. It has all the plans mapped out for different areas of cities and towns. If the Deputy is interested in a particular area of a city, he can get that information and see where the assessment is at, what the condition of the sewer is and whether there is an issue of misconnection. In some areas there are issues of misconnection. The plans get down to that granular level of detail.