Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I express my condolences to the family of Gay Byrne, his wife Kathleen, his daughters Suzy and Crona and his many and wide circle of colleagues and friends. Many of us grew up in a time whereby it is not possible to explain to people of this generation or those of the younger generation how influential Gay Byrne was with both his radio programme every morning and "The Late Late Show" when there were much fewer channels and people had a lot less choice in recording. So many people regarded it as must-see viewing live at the time and then spent the next few days discussing what happened on it. He is a huge loss to Irish life generally, and particularly to Irish broadcasting. I wanted to put that on the record.

Many of the points I might have raised such as health, the Shane O'Farrell case, social media and Kevin Lunney have all been mentioned so I will not mention them again. I support Senator Ó Donnghaile on Shannon Airport. On water, Senator Mulherin made a good case for 17 houses in Mayo but we have 600,000 people in north Dublin, Meath, Kildare, south Dublin and in parts of Dublin city who are again subject to a boil water notice. We have restaurants, pubs and schools affected by it. One in eight of the population of this country is affected by this boil water notice. It is not acceptable that within two weeks of the first scare we have this again. We need the Minister and Irish Water to tell us what is wrong. It is not acceptable that 12.5% of the population of this country are subject to a boil water notice and subject to going out and buying expensive water to do things as simple as brushing their teeth and washing their vegetables.