Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to offer some praise. People are making complaints about their constituencies, which is only right. There are areas of my constituency where there are issues with Irish Water. I came into the Dáil in 2017, 2018 and 2019 and made those complaints on behalf of my constituents, in particular those served by the Staleen water supply, which goes all the way from Staleen on the River Boyne to Ashbourne, Kilbride and Ratoath. I was pleased that earlier this year major upgrades were done in Ashbourne to ensure the resilience of the water supply, thanks to a lot of people working together.

Only this week, the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and I, along with other public representatives, turned the sod with Irish Water on a new reservoir that will serve Ratoath. At the moment Ratoath has about three hours' water supply if anything goes wrong on the main pipeline. With this work, it will have 24 hours' water supply, plus a better pipe network to prevent those problems arising in the first place. This is welcome. I am glad that I came into the Dáil and made similar points to those colleagues have made today, but we are seeing results in government and I confident that will continue across the country under this Government, working with Irish Water, to improve the water supply for all of our constituents.

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