Eoghan Murphy: Boil water notices for residents in Dublin and surrounding counties could remain into weekend

Boil water notices for residents in Dublin and in other counties could remain in place into the weekend and beyond, Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy has said.

In the Dáil, Mr Murphy said the boil water notice for 600,000 homes, the largest ever issued, will be temporary but may have to remain in place for a much smaller group of homes for several days and into the bank holiday weekend.

“It is a massive inconvenience to an awful lot of people. It is a precautionary notice. There is a 72-hour period in which three clear tests will be needed before the all-clear can be given,” he said.

Mr Murphy ruled out the need for water tankers to be deployed to assist the 600,000 homes affected.

The notice, affecting large tracts of North Dublin and its surrounding counties came into place on Tuesday but it was revealed in the Dáil that the failure at a water treatment plant in Leixlip emerged on Monday.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, responding to Fianna Fail's Dara Calleary and Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald during Leaders' Questions, said he was unaware if the boil water notice issued this week was linked to a previous failure at the plant in March.

Ms McDonald, reading from an audit published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said that in March a pump failure led to the lowering of a cryptosporidium barrier at the Leixlip plant.

Mr Calleary hit out at the failure of Irish Water to adequately cope with the response from the public once the notice was issued, citing difficulties in reading their maps of affected areas, and the fact the Irish Water website crashed.

"The Taoiseach said the fault was identified on Monday evening but it took a whole 24 hours for a boil water notice to issue to so many people. If the fault was identified on Monday evening there was time to put plans in place for contingency, information and communication," he said.

The Taoiseach said the Minister, Deputy Murphy, is keeping in touch with it. Is he being a little more proactive on it? Has he met Irish Water management and regional management? If it takes 48 hours for the water to go through, does that mean 48 hours from Monday evening?

"I and my party fully accept and support making health a priority but ahead of a bank holiday weekend people will want information.

"They will want certainty about the water supply ahead of any weekend but in particular a bank holiday weekend. We need more information and certainty than what we are getting at present," he added.