Mr. Graham Doyle:

In terms of the water sector transformation programme, there are discussions ongoing within the WRC at present, as the Deputy will probably be aware, on the transfer of local authority staff to Irish Water, which will be on a voluntary basis. As I said, engagements are ongoing on that and I think there is good and productive engagement around it. I do not want to take up more of the Deputy’s time on that.

There is a significant amount of investment in the rural water schemes and those programmes. In fact, while the amount was probably around the €40 million mark in the past couple of years, the estimate for the current year is €60 million to try to bring many of those rural local schemes up to a higher standard, to implement repairs and connections, and to support communities in terms of their endeavours in those spaces. That investment programme, as I said, has been given quite a significant element of additional resources so we would hope to see improvements of the order the Deputy is seeking.