It is remarkable that, in perhaps one of the wettest countries in the world, for a period of six to eight weeks large areas of Dublin city had no water supply or had a very ineffective and inefficient water supply. We have been informed by the local authority that the northern fringe of Dublin is supplied with water from the Ballycoolen reservoir at Leixlip. For the last three or four months the water supply has been reduced by 1-1.5 million gallons of water per day, which is totally unacceptable. I hope the Minister will redress this problem.
In the weeks before Christmas in many districts in my constituency, estates such as Limewood, Eannafort and Clonshaugh, people had their heating systems on, with no water flowing through the pipes. For a number of weeks after Christmas districts which are not in my constituency — I am sure I can speak for my colleague, Deputy Róisín Shortall — such as Finglas and Glasnevin, had no water supply for up to four days at a time. This caused great inconvenience, particularly for families with children and senior citizens. Friends of mine who live in Raheny had the unenviable experience over Christmas of telling American relatives who were staying with them that it was not possible to take a shower. I imagine those Americans got a very bad impression of Ireland.
To add to the present difficulties, permission has been given for the building of 1,100 houses in the north of my constituency and permission is about to be given in another parish for 800 or 900 houses. Effectively, another town the size of Castlebar, which was referred to earlier, will be created without providing proper water supply. This is unacceptable. I have been informed that INTEL, which is located in Kildare, uses 500,000-750,000 million gallons of water per day. This water comes from what used to be our supply and is used to manufacture chips.