Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all Deputies who spoke on this issue for echoing the call for conservation because it is important to make that call. I do not propose to speak with my political hat on. Although one or two Deputies did raise political issues, I am coming at this very much from the point of view of my responsibility for co-ordinating crises and emergency events of the type we have experienced from time to time. In the past 12 months, we have had two national red weather events and we are now into an event that is unprecedented because demand on our water system has changed considerably in the past 40 years since we last experienced a comparable weather event in terms of a prolonged drought. The crisis is not over. In fact, it is far from being over. Although rain is expected to fall in some parts of the country over the weekend there will be nowhere near enough rainfall to replenish our ground water, our rivers, our reservoirs and our lakes. We need at least three weeks of heavy rainfall to reverse the downward trajectory in our out stocks.

The core of the problem is the weather. There is a core supply problem in terms of our raw water supplies before it is treated or passed into the system. Deputy Paul Murphy likes to believe in conspiracy theories around privatisation. The Government does not control the weather. We cannot foresee what is going to happen in August but we can foresee what will happen in the next ten to 15 days and in this regard we foresee no alleviation in terms of significant rainfall. We have to be resilient and continue with water conservation. As I said, water levels are at an all time low, having fallen from a significant high in terms of the snowfall during Storm Emma. Funding is in place and investment is happening in the longer term. Leakage is being addressed. Additional crews are being brought in to work on pipes in different parts of the country. Good work is being done with Irish Water and the local authorities to get those crews in to fix leakages.

In terms of overall leakage and the failures that we have in our system, it took decades for that to be corrected in other jurisdictions like London, and it still has a 20% leakage problem.

I return to the initial fact: this is about raw water supplies continuing to run to low levels we have not seen previously in some parts of the country. The possibility of night-time restrictions is now very much in the fore. That would be due to a reduction in pressure. A decision on that in respect of the greater Dublin area will be made very shortly. As we look to the autumn and to the point Deputy Eamon Ryan was making, we believe we will be able to manage the supply and demand equilibrium between now and the end of August but if we do not see significant rainfall in that period we run the risk of having daytime restrictions in our water services in September and into October. Other emergency measures are being considered at the moment. I will keep them under review over the course of next week based on conversations I had at the national emergency co-ordination centre yesterday.

I thank people for their efforts and their resilience to date. As another Deputy said, they need to do the business and they are very much doing the business. When the hosepipe ban came into place in the greater Dublin area, demand fell by at least 40 Ml to 50 Ml over that period. We are still monitoring the effect of the national hosepipe ban, which is a bit more difficult to monitor. We will have figures on that very shortly, which will allow us to see if those conservation efforts are being replicated across the country - I am sure they are.

As things get worse - they will get worse - I ask Members to refrain from blaming Irish Water for the legacy problems the country has. It is managing the situation better than anyone else could to date, as I have seen in its control centre. We now have information, technology and oversight that we would never had if 31 or 34 local authorities were trying to manage that between themselves. Irish Water did not break the pipes or underinvest over the decades. It inherited the system and it is fixing it. Its workers are working overtime, day and night. They did so through storms Ophelia and Emma, and they are doing it again through this emergency.

I am proud of everyone's effort to date, but I wish to single out the Defence Forces and in particular the Air Corps. Over 100 different water drops have been conducted in different parts of the country in counties Laois and Wicklow. When the call came from our neighbours in Northern Ireland, it was able to come to their assistance as well. I am proud that it has been able to give that assistance. In the statement I provided to Members, I did not get to make reference to the environmental and serious ecological concerns we have with rivers running so low for our fish in terms of a lack of oxygen but also when we come into the spawning season. Conversely if we see heavy rain in August, it will run a huge amount of sediment and debris that has been building up over the land in recent weeks including those burnt parts of land, which also will have an environmental impact on our inland fisheries. As well as our firefighting, water safety and the water conservation efforts, we are concerned about the environmental impact we are already seeing in some parts of the country and conversely we could see even when rainfall comes.

I thank Members for making the time available for this debate. I ask them to use their social media networks to reinforce the conservation message and to remind people that even though they may see some rain in coming weeks, it will not be enough to replenish supplies in the coming months.

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