Mr. Ted O'Reilly:

The bigger area in terms of this conversation to my mind is the unserviced areas, the unsewered settlements and villages that currently do not have a wastewater network or they may have a combination of private developments such as the DPI I mentioned earlier. Those areas are in focus from the perspective of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. We referenced measure 8 of the rural water programme, which the Department administers. The local authorities would have applied to the Department for funding to establish new sewers and treatment plants where they did not exist before in villages. We are supportive of that. When the funding is put through, we have committed to take those on, as we have discussed previously.

Similar to what was mentioned earlier, in any scenario where we take in charge group schemes, where assets are in a certain condition and meet certain standards then the taking in charge and taking responsibility for those has been part of the process we have been following in recent years. I do not see a big concern in terms of that approach.

The Deputy mentioned the wastewater system in Kilronan. I can address that here today also. There is a small wastewater system treating wastewater from a small number of houses currently on the outskirts of the village of Kilronan. We continue to operate that and we recently carried out maintenance on it to improve its performance. However, it only covers a small number of houses.