Drinking water - Lack of clean water a disgrace

FOR generations Irish people’s difficulty with drinking water was on the Continent, or on a visit to Mexico, where an estimated 40% of tourists suffer from what is called Montezuma’s Revenge.

It usually consists of vomiting and diarrhoea as a caused by a bacterial infection after drinking local water.

We generally have not had to worry about our drinking water in this country, but recent infections as a result of cryptosporidium in the water in Galway are a reminder that we can no longer afford to be complacent. Earlier outbreaks occurred in Carlow town, Ennis and Roscommon town.

After failing to comply with a 2002 European Court of Justice ruling to provide clean water to all citizens, the Government recently received a final warning from the European Commission. More than half of all group water schemes in western counties like Kerry, Galway, Mayo, Sligo and Donegal were found to be breaking E. coli contamination standards.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that almost two-thirds of all public water schemes have insufficient monitoring and 35.6% have no monitoring at all. Where local authorities carried out assessments on the water for cryptosporidium, 45% of the water was a found to be in the category of “very high” to “moderate risk”. That figure only related to counties where the water was actually assessed. The drinking water of 41% of the people has not even been assessed.

This is asking for trouble as the people in Galway, Carlow, Ennis and Roscommon have already learned to their own discomfort.