Ms Margaret Attridge:

I suppose it is important to put this issue into context. I know there are particular problem areas in Cork city, but more than 300,000 people live in the metropolitan area of the city and we had 18 complaints this week. It is really localised pockets in Cork city that are experiencing these problems and we are focusing in on replacing the mains water pipes in those areas because they are the worst impacted. We have a limited pot of money, so we are not going to replace all the mains pipes right across Cork city right now and put these pipes into a replacement programme if there are no problems in those areas. Our initial focus, then, is on just trying to deal with the problem areas in Cork city now.