Minister Murphy fails to help homes impacted by boil water notices

Fianna Fáil Spokesperson on Housing, Planning and Local Government Darragh O’Brien TD has criticised the Housing Minister for failing to take responsibility for the boil water notice which has been imposed in the greater Dublin area
Today Irish Water told the Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning & Local Government that work to upgrade the Leixlip water plant, which is the cause of a large-scale boil water notice will not be completed until next year.

Speaking after today’s meeting, Deputy O’Brien said, “Minister Murphy failed to step up to address the situation where hundreds of thousands of people were forced to boil their water for routine household duties, and here we are now, back at square one.  The Minister should have intervened and taken action, but he didn’t and now over 600,000 people are inconvenienced again.

“It’s less than a fortnight since the last boil water notice was lifted.  This is a ridiculous situation for a first world country to find itself in and there are serious questions for Minister Murphy to answer.  There has been a real breakdown in confidence with households now dependent on bottled water to cook with and drink.

“It’s clear that lessons have not been learned from previous incidents and that warnings from the EPA as far back as March were not heeded.  Minister Murphy needs to take control of this very serious issue – or people’s health will be put at risk.

“It’s highly inexcusable that this has happened again, and urgent action must be taken to and prevent similar incidents in the future”, concluded Deputy O’Brien.