Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The programme for Government commits to the plans set out by Irish Water to continue to upgrade the dilapidated national water infrastructure. Currently 615,000 people in parts of Dublin, Kildare and Meath do not know whether their water is safe to drink. That is a huge proportion of the population. While the Minister has, it is fair to say, inferred the outcome of a meeting later this afternoon, it does not tell us much about the coming months and years, whatever about the coming days, and whether the water will be safe to drink in the future or whether the people in this area can expect boil water notices every time it rains heavily. During the last notice, my party leader raised with the Government an EPA report on the Leixlip plant, published in March of this year, which found serious operational failures that could have led to contamination. The report issued eight recommendations and stipulated that Irish Water should submit a report to the agency "within one month of the date of this audit report detailing how it has dealt with the issues of concern identified during this audit".

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