UISCE Éireann has apologised to customers for “failures” in relation to water treatment at O’Briensbridge.
An EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) audit this week revealed that people in the East Clare village were exposed to inadequately disinfected water for 12 months before a boil notice was put in place last August, a notice which was lifted on October 19, 2023.
The shortcoming was caused by a failure of the UV Disinfection System on the O’Briensbridge Public Water Supply, and in a statement to The Clare Echo, Uisce Éireann admitted, “We acknowledge the findings of the report and apologise to local customers for these failures.”
“Uisce Éireann’s priority at all times is the provision of safe, secure drinking water to our customers all over Ireland.
“As part of our enhanced national oversight and assessment programme, Uisce Éireann identified a number of issues with the disinfection processes at the O’Briensbridge water Treatment plant in August 2023. This resulted in a Boil Water Notice being put in place to protect public health, in consultation with the HSE. This notice remained in place until October while remedial works were carried out at the plant.”
Following an apology, Uisce Éireann said that since the discovery “major improvements have been made in operational oversight and risk management processes at the plant to ensure it provides a clean, safe drinking water supply to the local community”.
“Uisce Éireann has since completed works to address the recommendations in the EPA audit report, and additional source protection works are currently being progressed.
“These works included the upgrade of the disinfection systems, the installation of a turbidity monitor and chlorine alarms, and an enhanced schedule of network monitoring. Full UV disinfection is now in place at the plant with alarms and escalation systems to support this.”
Uisce Eireann added that enhanced training has also been rolled out to all staff on the operation of the disinfection systems at the plant and on the management and escalation of incidents, “so that we can protect and inform our customers”.
Customers who have any queries or concerns about their water quality can contact our customer care centre 24/7 at 1800 278 278.
