Mr. Jerry Grant:

Let me move on to Deputy O'Brien's questions on leakage and mains replacement. We will get into that in more detail later. Taking the broad view, in the early days of Irish Water, in 2014, we were inundated with issues concerning asbestos cement pipes and the frequency of failure in many parts of the country. It was not exclusively asbestos cement but asbestos was a particular problem. The programme has been very popular in the sense that we have been able to deal with very many of the chronic problems that have been ongoing for ages. They keep turning up, however. I received a representation recently about a pipe that failed seven times in a month. That is intolerable. One might as well have no supply. Therefore, we are going out to deal with this. In the past few months, we have had frameworks in place. We have regional contractors who can go out much quicker. Therefore, we do not have to tender for each project. That is a big help. Obviously, there is a scale one can reach. We will talk about that.

Fundamentally, pipe replacement is about the replacement of pipes that are rotten or effectively failing all the time. Normal leakage is addressed by fixing the pipe. One finds the leak and fixes it. Let me give an example. The 150-year-old pipes from Vartry to Stillorgan, for example, are in perfect condition and they will last another 50 without difficulty.