Council faces trial over public water supply contamination

THE management of the Ennis public water supply is to come under the spotlight in a court later this year.

The Director of Public Prosecutions is expected to bring nine charges against Clare County Council relating to allowing water untreated for cryptosporidium into the town’s public water system over a five-month period in 2008 and 2009.

The council is accused of failing to comply with a directive from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that it cease the bypassing of its membrane filtration plant at its Drumcliffe Water Treatment Plant as soon as possible and no later than May 1, 2008. The new charges come 15 months after the DPP directed the striking out of a previous prosecution initially brought by the EPA.