Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. Obviously, my question is in respect of the fact that Irish Water is going to operate the ultraviolet filter at Ringsend for a period outside the bathing season. As the Minister of State is aware, the bathing season lasts for three months in summer. My question to the Department is about how long Irish Water will operate the filter. Will that be publicised and constituents informed of it?

As regards the Irish Water upgrade, the Minister of State is absolutely right. I met representatives of the body a very long time ago in respect of this problem and they told me the ongoing works in the Shanganagh catchment drainage area plan programme and the west pier and Ringsend catchment drainage area plan will not be completed until 2023 and 2024, respectively. I believe that completion just relates to analysis and planning, never mind actually getting down to doing the work. Dr. Eimear Cotter, the director of the EPA, has said that it is calling for additional water quality monitoring at beaches where there are a large number of year-round swimmers and for that information to be made available to the public. That statement by Dr. Cotter validates and endorses the position I am taking and that of the 35 other Deputies who have signed up to this body of work.

On 2 November, I received a response from the Department to a parliamentary question I tabled on this issue and the response of the Minister of State mirrors it very closely. However, a section of that response has been left out of her script today, and I query it. It states that departmental officials will examine options with the bathing water expert group at the next meeting of the group, which is in December. The part of the response that I do not understand states that the group will undertake a robust analysis of the positive and negative consequences of each of the options and, in particular, the Minister is aware that the group will wish to ensure existing summer time bathing water designations are not jeopardised in the short term as a consequence of weather-affected winter sampling results, while also providing protection to those bathing in Dublin Bay all the way through the year. I do not even understand that in English, never mind in policy or political terms. I assume it is not some class of threat or a case of being one or the other. I encourage the departmental officials, who I hope are watching these proceedings, to embrace a philosophy of being able to do both.

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