It is a basic human right in a civilised, modern society to have a safe, clean, uninterrupted water supply. It may be construed that I have a conflict of interest because my company sometimes works on repairing and replacing water mains. However, in many parts of Kerry, especially mid-Kerry and the Killarney area, residents, businesses and hotels are faced with a constant barrage of outages day after day. Residents in places like Barleymount, Aghadoe, Laharan, Pallas and Beaufort, from the Gap of Dunloe and all along the board of works road from Beaufort to Gearagh Cross, people are tormented. People in the areas of Faha, Listry, Foynes, Milltown, Castlemaine and Farranfore are suffering outages day after day. Even New Street in Killarney town had one the day before yesterday.

The long and the short of it is the shambolic condition of the pipe network is the cause, much of which is obsolete and contains asbestos that needs to be replaced. Many of these asbestos pipes have exceeded their 35-year lifespan, which means they should be replaced. The large asbestos pipe on the central regional water supply from Lough Guitane through Killarney to Tralee, supplying our hospitals and more than 60,000 customers, is in a precarious condition and needs to be urgently replaced. More often than not, it breaks in Farranfore on the N22. If it were not for our excellent Kerry County Council water repair crews, under Freddie Bartlett and others, who use their vast experience, intelligence and expertise to repair the pipes as quickly as possible, save as much as water possible, build up the pressure and restore the supply to customers, the situation would be very much worse.

I also thank the fire brigade, which has had to be brought in recently to replenish water supplies in the Killarney and Aghadoe areas. It cannot be right that the Local Government Management Agency, LGMA, and local authorities want these crews to move across to Irish Water. These crews include engineers, technicians and general operatives who have given valuable service. It is not fair or right to put them under such pressure to move across to Irish Water. Many of them have worked for 20, 30 and even up to 40 years repairing water supplies for Kerry County Council. I value the experience they bring to the water service because I worked with many of them going back in time. I understand the value they add to the water network system.

I appreciate we need to invest more in our water network. We are currently preparing the national development plan, NDP, review, which will set out the level of public investment in all forms of infrastructure between now and 2030. It is the update, or refresh, of Project Ireland 2040. We expect to complete that in the next few months. As part of that, we are giving consideration to additional funding for Irish Water.

However, there is a difficulty, though not an insurmountable one, in that Irish Water is a State agency on the public balance sheet. When it comes to allocating money for Irish Water, it has to compete with the health service, education and justice for capital funding. The model we previously proposed was that it would be a publicly-owned utility, a semi-State company like the ESB, for example, which would be able to borrow against its own balance sheet and assets using income from charges. That would have created much more money to invest in water and we could have done much more than we now can do, but that decision is made and the ship has sailed on that issue.

I appreciate the point made by the Deputy. We will do our best to find additional capital for Irish Water over the next couple of years but there is an opportunity cost associated with it. That money cannot then go into housing, public transport, health or education. While we may be able to borrow at the moment at very low interest rates, we still have a borrowing limit. We expect the European Central Bank to start unwinding quantitative easing around March next year and fiscal rules to be reimposed in 2023.

I thank the Tánaiste for his reply. It is very clear that Irish Water is underfunded and the pipes need to be replaced and updated. It is costing a bomb to keep repairing the breaks that are going on. The break in Farranfore costs, I believe, €35,000 each time it happens. That is a massive sum of money.

I will also highlight that people in other rural areas of Kerry, such as east Kerry, Scartaglin, Castleisland, Lyracrumpane and Fieries, cannot afford to pay for group water schemes. The user cost is approximately €8,000 or €10,000 per house but, lo and behold, because Irish Water is stranded for money, it is looking for €2,000 more from each house on top of the group water scheme cost that Kerry County Council charges. This is not fair; it is double charging. People cannot afford it. They have to drop their request or application for a group water scheme because of this additional cost Irish Water has recently demanded of them. It has stopped five, six or seven group water schemes going ahead.

I am not sure if that was a question but I heard the points the Deputy made. They were very fair points and very well made. On the particular issues relating to Kerry, if the Deputy sends me more details about them, I will be happy to take them up with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and provide him with a more detailed reply.