Mr. Kieran Kehoe:

Let me answer. We are going through our workforce planning process. Every year we do the budget. That is assigned and difficult decisions have to be made. We would love to have more staff. In the next two years, with the full transition to Irish Water or Uisce Éireann and the staff that will move, like most authorities we will end up with a lot of staff being retained, which will add to our staff numbers. All I know, from our own example in Meath, is that we have quite substantially increased the GO workforce over the past couple of years. I am sure other authorities are in the same process. It is a local resource issue based on the size and scale of their own authorities.

On Uisce Éireann and the group water schemes, it was an issue I was very acutely aware of during the whole process. I have to admit at the start that, yes, Uisce Éireann's focus was on the public water supplies. I must compliment it that once it had the bulk of its own public supply sorted, it recognised that the group water schemes did not have the capacity and capability to sort themselves out. As the Deputy said, Uisce Éireann did step in for some very substantial schemes and now it has acknowledged that role of support for group water schemes. We acknowledge that. Mr. O'Reilly may have something to add about the GOs.