Boil water notices likely to be repeated until summer

The boil water notices affecting more than one-in-every-10 people in the country are likely to continue until the end of the week and risk being repeated again until infrastructure changes next summer.

Irish Water and Fingal County Council admitted the situation on Tuesday amid growing TD demands for the 615,000 people affected by the Dublin issues to be compensated for what has happened.

Speaking during a lengthy Oireachtas housing committee meeting in response to two boil water notice crises hitting the capital and the surrounding region in the past fortnight, officials from both groups admitted problems will continue.

And, while stressing they are doing everything possible to restore full water services, Irish Water's managing director Niall Gleeson and Fingal County Council chief executive Ann Marie Farrelly said further problems may be unavoidable.

Asked by Fianna Fáil's housing spokesperson Darragh O Brien "when can consumers, over 615,000 of them, expect to have clean drinking water again, that's the fundamental question we'd like to know", Mr Gleeson said: "The window for the slug of water to pass through the system hasn't happened yet. We have to be realistic."

Both Mr Gleeson and Ms Farrelly later clarified to Fine Gael TD and committee chair Noel Rock it will be "Thursday at the earliest" and potentially as long as until the weekend before full water services are restored.

This is because, while water flow was due to return to normal over Tuesday night, three clear Environmental Protection Agency audits and confirmation turbidity levels have returned to normal are needed before the water can be deemed safe.

Irish Water's head of asset operations Michael O Leary later said when asked by Mr Rock if the boil water notices at Leixlip "could keep happening", that this is a risk "until such a time as the plan is upgraded" in early summer 2020.

Meanwhile, during the same meeting Sinn Féin's housing spokesperson Eoin O Broin repeatedly raised concerns over "who foots the bill for the additional expense" caused to ordinary citizens who have bought bottled water during the boil water notice.

During the committee meeting, Mr Gleeson confirmed the latest boil water notice incident occurred after an alarm that was raised after issues were identified in the old part of the Leixlip plant was not acted on.

Ms Farrelly, whose council has control of the plant, confirmed when asked that disciplinary action "is underway" into the incident but declined to provide further information.

At a later stage of the committee, Irish Water confirmed to Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy that the Intel company has been affected by both boil water notices over the past fortnight.

Mr Gleeson had earlier appeared on RTE radio's Morning Ireland programme to defend Irish Water's handling of the issue, saying efforts to refurbish the old part of the Leixlip plant while continuing to provide a service are like "trying to change the tyres on a car while it is still heading down the road".

However, he later insisted to the committee that despite the problems at the plant and the two boil water notices in just a fortnight, saying: "We are working as hard as we can to address this problem. But it's not a plant failure."