Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will give the House some information on this. As the Deputy knows, about 500 households are affected, which is just over 1,000 people. The incident was caused by a mechanical failure at a chlorine dosing pump that resulted in excessive chlorine levels in the water supply. Chlorine is added to drinking water for disinfection purposes to ensure that water is safe to drink from a microbiological point of view. Irish Water customers have been told not to drink the water, not to use it for food preparation and not to wash with it until further notice.

Manned water tankers are in place in appropriate locations in the area. The mechanical failure has now been addressed and Irish Water is flushing the network to return chlorine levels to what they should be. The advice is clear, and it is that people should not use the water until Irish Water gives an instruction that it is okay to do so and the problem has been being fixed.

See this speech in context