Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)

Go raibh maith agat. I want to raise with the Taoiseach the situation of two households living in Lyre, Mahon Bridge, County Waterford. They live in two adjoining council-built cottages constructed in 1949. At the time, the local authority installed a water supply from an open stream flowing off the Comeragh Mountains, and that is still their only source of water 75 years later. It is untreated and coming from a roadside stream. The water runs black and is full of silt, filth and worse. Each of the men has pulled dead rats and badgers from it on occasion. The supply is so unsafe that the health authorities have warned them not to even wash their hands with it.

I have raised this directly with the Minister for housing and with Uisce Éireann. A brand new public mains runs just 500 m from the townland of Fews across from these men's homes. Connecting these homes would require just a short bore under a regional road but Uisce Éireann has refused to fund it and instead told residents to apply for a private well grant. Unfortunately, the land in the area they live in is not suitable for a private well and they have that on good authority from several professional well drillers. Will the Taoiseach please act in the interests of these two households and instruct Uisce Éireann? I will show the Taoiseach, very briefly, a bottle with a sample of water they provided me with recently. It illustrates the depth of what their public water supply is.

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