Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State's reply. I genuinely do, because that brings the story along. It is reassuring to know that the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, has written to the statutory body involved here and that a meeting will take place with the CEO of Uisce Éireann and we will see what the result of that meeting will be.

I feel sorry for the people of this region, and particularly the Kanturk and District Trout Anglers Association, which had a Trout Anglers Federation of Ireland's all-Ireland river championship competition scheduled to take place that weekend. To quote from themselves, as reported by Sean Murray in the Irish Examiner, that "celebration of our sport and a positive impact to the local economy is now gone".

These things are entirely preventable. What really worries me is the fact that, as the Minister of State noted, "There was previously a serious incident at the Freemount water treatment plant in August 2022". That being the case, the warning lights were shining. What preventative measures were carried out to prevent such an incident occurring again? Clearly, Uisce Éireann has a massive case to answer for this.

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