Ms Angela Ryan:

In the Dublin region right now we have critical water and wastewater issues. Yesterday, the demand for water was about 643 million litres. Our plants can sustainably produce about 620 million litres. We had a deficit yesterday. We have ongoing interim projects to address the deficits. Similarly, on the wastewater side, we depend on the Ringsend wastewater treatment plant. We have upgraded this plant but, ultimately, we probably have two or three years of growth at the levels of demand increase left within that plant. We are trying to develop projects. In the NDP, 50% of the growth in housing is assigned to the eastern and midlands regions. Of the 300,000 houses in the programme for Government, 150,000 of them are in the eastern and midlands regions. Based on the facilities we have now, we can probably get up to 2028 or 2029 but, based on current capacity, that is when we will run into significant difficulties.