Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for being with us. That was an education on lead pipes. I congratulate Irish Water on the two significant achievements we have seen in the past year in Vartry and the significant upgrades in Leixlip, which serves many of my constituents in Lucan. It is great to get that update on the eastern and midlands regional project, which is coming down the tracks. I spoke earlier about the Saggart project and the 100 million l reservoir that is being installed there. I had the opportunity to go on site with Irish Water's partners that are building that. It is great to see they are more than halfway through that project, which will provide better stability and security for the greater Dublin region when it comes to water. I welcome all that investment.

My first question is on water quality, although not really on the minimum quality standards. I accept we need to ensure the water that comes out of everybody's taps is safe to drink. That is a requirement but we should be aiming for a higher bar than that and to deliver high-quality water that tastes good to encourage people, in particular children, to drink it. In some areas of Lucan that are served by a particular pump, we do not have that. We have extremely hard water which damages expensive appliances like dishwashers and washing machines, which is a complaint I hear repeatedly. Will it be possible to merge water supplies to dilute hard water as part of the eastern and midlands regional project? Will the pipes allow for that?

My second question is on leaks. It is soul-destroying to talk about leaks and to see the wastage. I congratulate Irish Water on all it is doing to reduce that. Reducing it from 50% to 38% has been an achievement and to get it to 25% and 20% in Dublin will be great. How much is that costing? How much money are we pumping into leaks?

This is the Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage and all of us are committed to making sure we deliver new homes, houses and housing estates as quickly as possible.

Water is a key service when it comes to that. I have had a situation in my constituency, and have seen and know of similar situations in Dublin South-West and Cork, where estates have been built but there have been delays in getting people into homes, or people went into homes but did not get water, because the connections were not happening when they should have been. Is that still happening? Are there estates that people are or should be in that are not connected to water supplies at present? My three questions relate to the wider quality issue, whether we could merge water supplies and leaks from a funding perspective, and housing commencements.