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

I thank the Deputy for the follow-on question. When we read the EPA audit of the October event, if we want to call it that, and the March event, and now we have a November event, I think we were all pretty shocked by what was not done between March and October. It was a very detailed report and I thank the EPA for the work it did very quickly as a result of this boil water notice being put in place. This is a critical piece of infrastructure and we now see the importance of ensuring that when these audits happen they are responded to in a timely fashion and that the investments that need to be made are made without undue delay. I thank the members of the committee for the lengthy engagement they had today over a number of hours with the relevant stakeholders. Yesterday I myself spoke to the managing director of Irish Water, the chief executive of Fingal County Council and the head of the EPA. I will visit the Leixlip plant tomorrow. In this instance I have requested a special report from the EPA that follows on from and will build upon the audit. That will come to me very shortly, after which I will engage with all the relevant stakeholders to ensure we have a proper understanding of what needs to be done regarding the operation of this plant. Irish Water finds itself in a difficulty in that it is legally responsible for the plant but not in operational control of it. Certain things which should have been done and which Irish Water wanted to do after the March failure were not done. They have now been done but it should not have taken the October event for them to be done. I need to review, based on the information I get following this third incident, exactly what new measures might need to be taken, regarding not just the long-term treatment issues and investments - the Deputy talked about the issue of UV - but also the operational control of the plant itself.

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