Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his follow-up question. If he has the opportunity to visit a water treatment plant and see a UV system in operation, he will see how it works and its benefit. My understanding is that even if a UV system had been put in place, it would not have prevented what has happened in this third incident, so it is important to separate that out. My immediate concern is to ensure we can get the type of work we need to do done on what is called the old part of the plant in order that the threat of a boil water notice does not hang over all these residents indeterminately into the future. That is the first piece of work we must do and the most important. There are other elements in the audit, including UV lighting and so on. We must look at this because this is a critical piece of infrastructure. It serves far too many households, supplying one third of Dublin's drinking water, I think.

The list of vulnerable users maintained by Irish Water has worked very effectively when we have had various incidents in the past. The Deputy will remember that in 2017 a very large pipe broke, which affected thousands of households, but Irish Water was able to target those vulnerable households unable to get out to the water tankers with bottles to fill with water. There were two choices here: cut off the water supply to treat the plant, or let water go into the system and put in place a boil water notice. Since we have done the latter, people can still shower and wash clothes, but when it comes to drinking, cooking, brushing their teeth and so on, they need to boil water. They therefore do not necessarily need to go out to get plastic bottles of water, which has other impacts. They can still use the water coming out of their taps. I know boiling water is a massive inconvenience, but the inconvenience of having no water at all would have been much greater. I therefore support the call made by the authorities on that.

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