Ms Margaret Attridge:

Any time there is an exceedance in the network we engage with the HSE and it will offer health advice. As Deputy Gould knows, this year we installed a manganese treatment unit at the treatment plant and also an additional conditioning treatment unit to adjust the alkalinity, which manages the corrosivity of the water going into the network, so thankfully the people of Cork city are seeing an improvement in the water quality in the city. The number of complaints is reduced to two to three a day as opposed to last year when we were seeing ten to 15 per day. We are continuing to sample. We have expanded our sampling programme on the network to ensure the water, for the most part, is compliant. We take public health very seriously. We are sampling at 48 locations across the city. Any time there is a manganese exceedance, either by our proactive sampling or when we do follow-up sampling following a customer contact about discolouration, we sample the water. If there is a failure we go out and flush the network immediately at that location and test the water following flushing to make sure it is compliant and provide the certificate to the customer to validate that the water is compliant.