Call for inquiry into full facts behind water crisis in Galway
Eamon Gilmore, Labour’s spokesman on the environment, said that a committee of TDs should investigate the mistakes and omissions that led to a modern city of 90,000 people being left with no clean drinking waters for five weeks.
He said that the inquiry by the Dáil Committee on the Environment should seek answers in person from council officials in Galway, councillors, Department of Environment staff as well as ministers for the Environment.
Mr Gilmore added that the situation was so serious, that so many mistakes were made that nothing less than an inquiry would do.
“The aim of the inquiry should be to establish the full facts that led to the Galway crisis and to make appropriate recommendations to ensure that it can never happen again,” he said.
Mr Gilmore, who was launching the election campaign of Galway West TD Michael D Higgins, said it was a disgrace that Galway’s water supply had become contaminated by the cryptosporidium parasite.
“The Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, should spend a little more time in finding a solution to this shocking problem, and a little less time in trying to shift the blame,” he said in reference to media interviews given by the minister in recent days.
In reference to the Terryland water supply plant and other water works around Lough Corrib, he said infrastructure has not kept up to date with the pace of residential development.
According to the Health Services Executive in Galway, the number of confirmed cases of cryptosporidium in Galway as of this weekend was approaching 200, though the rate of infection has began to slow.
Meanwhile, there are growing fears that Mayo could experience a water contamination crisis similar to the one in Galway.
Residents of a Gaeltacht village on the Galway-Mayo border are worried that raw sewage from their 50-year-old sewerage treatment plant may be leaking into a river that runs into Lough Mask. And they believe this could lead to a contamination of Mask itself, which is the main source of drinking water for thousands of households throughout south, west and east Mayo.
The people of Clonbur want a new treatment plant. “The money is there from a grant announced by Minister Eamon O’Cuiv’s department, and we are calling on Galway County Council to move this matter forward as a matter of urgency,” said Tomas Burke, a local businessman in Clonbur.
A Mayo county council official said that the water from Lough Mask is tested on a regular basis and is of the highest standard.
