Mr. Niall Gleeson:

A recent survey by the CRU found that approximately 40% of people are still contacting the local authorities when there are water issues. As Irish Water takes over next year, we have a framework in place to take over local authority control, or control of plants and that. Getting that message out to constituents would help us to communicate that Irish Water is now and should be the main point of contact for communicating water issues. The other thing we are trying do is to use more technology such as text messaging.

People are still reluctant or, as we have yet to test the water on this, it may be that people are reluctant to give personal data to Irish Water. We would certainly be keen to set up a system where, based on a person's Eircode, they would get a text if there was an issue in their area. That is something we are going to pilot next year on a voluntary basis. Again, it is something this committee could help us to promote. It would certainly help with many of these communications issues that we raised, where we are trying to update people on boil water notices. Right now, it is very cumbersome and, for example, we are doing hand drops and deliveries. We do not even know who is in what house now because we have lost a lot of the billing data and we do not have that. If people move house, they will change their electricity or gas, but they do not tell the water company that they have moved. The committee could help us there.

We are getting the funding, which is good and I think we are in a good place. Over the next few years, we just need to keep up that level of funding.