Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail)

I will elaborate a bit more. Uisce Éireann has a customer service function through its water charges plan and customer charter, which outlines the standard of services customers should expect to receive. It is open to any member of the public to lodge a formal complaint with Uisce Éireann if they are not happy with the service provided. Details on how to do so are on its website. Any issues that cannot be resolved by Uisce Éireann to the satisfaction of the customer can be referred, under the formal complaints process, to the Commission for Regulation of Utilities. The details on this process can be found on the CRU website.

The Government’s priority is to ensure that people’s health is protected and that adequate water is available for all consumers. Both our water and wastewater systems require substantial and sustained investment over a number of investment cycles to bring the systems up to the quality of resilience standards required of a modern service to provide for population growth and to build resilience in the face of climate change. I assure the Deputy that the Government is delivering a sustainable funding path to further enhance the ongoing significant improvements in our public water and wastewater services.

Again, I have contacted Uisce Éireann and asked it to reach out to the residents to try to give them some information and satisfaction in terms of the path forward. However, the Deputy will understand based on the response I gave earlier that there are a whole host of legacy issues that, unfortunately, are not simply resolved overnight. I know this has taken time. If Uisce Éireann does not reach out to the residents, the Deputy should come back to me and we will ensure that communication happens.

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