Near 1,000 claims of illness linked to drinking water made to Uisce Éireann over past two years

Customers contacted the utility with general concerns over water quality 151 times in 2025, up from 126 during the previous year. File picture

Uisce Éireann received nearly 1,000 customer complaints during the past two years from people claiming illness was linked to their drinking water.

However, the utility said none of the complaints from 2024 or 2025 involved a verified illness caused by drinking water quality.

Figures released under FoI show the number of customer reports categorised as “reported illness” fell from 508 in 2024 to 463 last year.

Overall, there were more than 2,300 complaints made to Irish Water about potential illness, discolouration, odours, or the taste of drinking water.

The number of issues raised by customers fell by around 15% over the past two years.

Irish Water said there were 57 complaints linked to boil water notices last year, compared to 51 in 2024.

Customers contacted the utility with general concerns over water quality 151 times in 2025, up from 126 during the previous year.

A total of 499 complaints about discoloured water were made in 2024 — but that dropped substantially to 346 last year.

For 2024, there were also 30 cases logged that were linked to strange odours from water, dropping to 15 for 2025.

A further 42 complaints were registered about the taste of drinking water in 2024, and 31 similar complaints were made in 2025.

Cork remained the biggest source of complaints, according to the data released by Uisce Éireann. 

For 2025, almost a quarter of all issues raised came from residents of either the city council or county council areas.

Complaints in Cork City dropped dramatically, however, from 269 in 2024 to 116 last year.

However, the number of customers raising concerns in the Cork County Council area jumped from 78 to 129.

There were nearly 230 complaints made across the four local authorities in Dublin last year, up more than 10% compared to 2024.

Other counties with a sizable number of complaints in 2025 included Clare with 73, Kildare with 43, and Wexford, also with 43.

The water utility said: “Ireland’s public water supplies are of very high quality with over 99% of the country’s drinking water supplies fully compliant with drinking water standards.

“Uisce Éireann produces 1.7bn litres of water a day in over 700 treatment plants.” 

They said the water quality issues listed in the FoI release accounted for just 0.2% of total customer contacts in 2025.

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