Mr. Brendan McDonagh:

There is but they also have to have the finance to be able to do it. I started my career in the ESB. The ESB had stores all around the country which stored all the electricity materials, including wire, power transformers, TRAFOs, and everything one needed. The management thinking at the time was that it was an inefficient use of capital because one might store a TRAFO for two years and there would be no storm, so it would be sitting there unused. Management computerised the whole system and it went to a just-in-time system, where something could be ordered just in time. I left the ESB a long time ago but now one hears that if one is ordering a TRAFO now, it can take two years to get it, when a TRAFO is needed for a site which can deliver 500 houses.

That is not the only issue but someone has to grab this and say that there is no point saying there will be 50,000, 40,000 or 30,000 houses unless there are people who can do their part on the necessary steps along the way. It is important. Sometimes, one has to focus people's minds and say that you want to get to 50,000 units a year and therefore you will have to give the money to Irish Water or the ESB to upgrade the network and have sufficient stock to do it. Otherwise, to be honest, since we are all adults here, people are only fooling themselves if they think it is going to happen without someone calling it out, planning it and saying that failing to prepare means one should prepare to fail. That is the motto I have. One has to put the work in. One cannot just think that somebody else will do it but has to drive it and say that this is what needs to happen. It needs to be done in a co-ordinated way. We have a bit to go.