Ms Mary Cahill:

I thank Deputy Devlin for his question. I will deal with the cost issue first. We are still at the lessons learned stage. An increased budget will definitely be required. We have been in discussions with municipal districts. The environment section and our climate action budget within Wicklow County Council will cover the additional cost this year, but we have said to the section that it needs to look for an increased budget next year in order to deal with this. A contractor was brought in because we were trialling it. As stated, we were still at the stage of learning lessons and were trialling it. There would be no reason that the own machine could not be retrofitted with the wire brushes.