Dr. Colin Byrne:

We are hoping to publish the river basin plan soon. We take a holistic approach, so we look at catchments in their totality and what the significant pressures are. Ms Hennessy spoke to that point earlier. If agriculture and urban wastewater are a problem in a particular catchment, plans will be put in place to address all of those measures. There are sectoral plans that Uisce Éireann will prepare. That will start over the coming months. On the inspection side under nitrates, there will be a number of inspections planned for a particular catchment. There will be a number of farms targeted through the farming for water project, and depending on what is happening in a catchment, a plan of action will be put together with the intention of bringing us close to full achievement by 2027, which is clearly challenging. Some 46% of water bodies are not achieving their objectives, so we have to plan beyond that. However, we will look to get as close to 100% as possible. We have a mid-term review planned for next year where, depending on how progress is going with the farming for water project for instance and the number of farmer recruitments, we will look at whether we are on target and if we can increase our ambition. We will aim as high as we can. However, at this point it is inevitable that we will have to extend beyond 2027. There are grounds for exemptions and to extend deadlines based on robust and stringent criteria. A piece of work we need to do over the coming 12 to 24 months is setting that out. We will aim as high as we can. We will take an estimate as to how far we will get, what the gap will be, and look at the grounds for extended deadlines beyond that. That gives the general context. Mr. Horgan will speak for Uisce Éireann.