The programme for Government commits to the plans set out by Irish Water to continue to upgrade the dilapidated national water infrastructure. Currently 615,000 people in parts of Dublin, Kildare and Meath do not know whether their water is safe to drink. That is a huge proportion of the population. While the Minister has, it is fair to say, inferred the outcome of a meeting later this afternoon, it does not tell us much about the coming months and years, whatever about the coming days, and whether the water will be safe to drink in the future or whether the people in this area can expect boil water notices every time it rains heavily. During the last notice, my party leader raised with the Government an EPA report on the Leixlip plant, published in March of this year, which found serious operational failures that could have led to contamination. The report issued eight recommendations and stipulated that Irish Water should submit a report to the agency "within one month of the date of this audit report detailing how it has dealt with the issues of concern identified during this audit".

I thank the Deputy. His time is up.

I will ask my questions now. Was that instrument related to, or a repetition of, what occurred in March? Can the Minister affirm that the plant in Leixlip is fit for purpose, reliable and has the ability to protect water in the long term?

There is a lot in the Deputy's question, and a number of hours were spent detailing these issues last week at the Oireachtas joint committee. What I can say is that the March event and the October event were two different types of event. One concerned chemical treatment, the other biological treatment. The root cause of why we had to issue a boil water notice in October was that in both instances, the emergency alarm that was activated did not lead to a stop in production. That has since been remedied. There is now an automatic kill switch where the alarm is raised. That was recommended to be put in in March and Irish Water wanted it to be put in in March. That was resisted by the plant operator but it is now in place. The latest boil water notice that is in place at the moment, which we hope will be lifted very soon, is for a separate reason related to filtration systems, which are getting investment at present under the funding we put in place. Those filters are being worked on, and the sooner they can be finished, the more the risk of further boil water notices recedes.

Investment is incredibly important. Just yesterday we turned the sod on €39 million going into new wastewater treatment services in Kildare. I was with the Deputy in Cork on Friday, when we were at the site of social houses being constructed at present. Before that I was at the new treatment plant on the River Lee, which has not been invested in in 50 years. These types of investment will protect people into the future. We have identified the Leixlip plant previously as being of particular concern. That is why those investments are under way.