*Bridgetown.
UISCE ÉIREANN have come under fire from a former Mayor of Clare who claimed the state-owned water utility company threw local personnel in South-East Clare to the wolves.
Speaking at last Wednesday’s meeting of the Killaloe Municipal District, Cllr Tony O’Brien (FF) raised “serious concerns” with Uisce Éireann over an EPA Audit Report published in 2024 and a more recent audit released earlier this year.
Standing orders were suspended to allow Cllr O’Brien discuss the matters which impact on the water supply serving O’Briensbridge and Bridgetown which he labelled as “serious issues”. He admitted, “I have serious concerns on the performance of Uisce Éireann with this report”.
Referencing the 2024 Audit, Cllr O’Brien recalled that it was stated as fact in the report that the UV ultraviolet disinfection system had failed, the plant had also failed to achieve chlorine contact levels and that it struggled during periods of heavy rainfall.
Similar failings have continued, he said. “Two years later and we have the same thing for repetition, the same UV system is not working as per the last published EPA report”.
An announced inspection at the plant on February 17th of this year detected turbidity spikes in excess of 1NTU from December 30th 2025 to January 19th 2026. The audit found that the high turbidity alarm and shutdowns had been “disabled” at the time of the incident. It noted that the UV disinfection system was operating outside of its validated range from January 15th until January 18th 2026. The alarms and inhibits on the UV unit had been turned off and as a result the water treatment plant did not automatically shut down in response to the UV unit dropping outside of its validated range.
Cllr O’Brien commented, “the same UV system was not working for several days in January, Uisce Éireann did not promptly report these incidents to the EPA or the HSE, a boil notice could have been reported to the people, because of these failures there is a weakness in oversight”.
According to the Killaloe representative, the EPA have “real concerns” over the delay in reporting this, “risk assessments could have exposed consumers to unsafe drinking water. To say I’m annoyed with the repetition is an understatement, they seem to be throwing the personnel operating the system to the wolves and under the bus, I’ve a serious concern with any agency who throws workers as fodder for their failures, I personally know the people working on the ground with Clare County Council and Uisce Éireann, I know them to be decent, honourable people, I don’t accept the report in its entirety, I accept serious failures”.
Putting a proposal to the floor, Cllr O’Brien said, “I propose that Uisce Éireann be invited in here to explain in total what went on down there, how the systems recommended in 2024 were not put in place and how the people in Bridgetown, O’Briensbridge and Montpelier were exposed to that level of contamination”. He added, “I am hopeful they will have the guts and courage to come talk to us because we represent the people”.
Seconding the request, Cllr Pat Hayes (FF) observed, “We’ve never really suspended standing orders here before but this fully merits the discussion. It is a very unfair system that nobody knows about it in advance, we had a similar incident in Scariff a few years ago, they highlighted something which was a mistruth altogether, if it requires an emergency meeting we should do it”.
