Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will refer to the programme for Government in respect of Irish Water. People tend to forget the very good story that is to be told in the context of why it was necessary to establish Irish Water. Every public representative and community knows full well just how inferior the system has been for so many years. I refer to leaking lead pipes and the wasting of water. If Deputy Adams discovered that the water tanks at his homes in counties Donegal and Louth were leaking on a Wednesday, he would state that they needed to be fixed. If they were found to be leaking the following week, he would say the same thing. For the past 50 years, some 40% to 50% of treated water has been leaking into the ground before people had the chance to use it. Citizens paid for that water to be treated. No one wants 20,000 people in County Roscommon to be obliged to continue to boil water for the next number of years. I am glad that this burden will be removed from those people in the next short period.

In the context of the programme of work Irish Water has put in train, the Cooley regional water supply scheme at Omeath was completed late last year.

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