Cork City Council to report failures on water quality to EU

Cork City Council has voted to write to the European Commission’s environment watchdog requesting that Uisce Éireann be investigated under the Drinking Water Directive 2020.

The decision followed a motion proposed by An Rabharta Glas councillor Lorna Bogue at a council meeting this week.

Councillor Bogue moved that the Council write to the European Commission Directorate General (ECDG) for Environment requesting that Uisce Éireann be investigated “with regard to quality monitoring, contamination and risk management strategy, and other relevant aspects in respect of unacceptable provision of drinking water in Cork city”.

It follows months of reports of discoloured water in parts of the city, with large areas of the city’s northside, and parts of the southside, suffering ongoing issues.

Addressing the council meeting, Cllr Bogue said, given its previous vote calling for the abolition of Uisce Éireann, she was asking that the council show consistency and agree to write to the ECDG for Environment, “so the Government can be compelled to intervene”.

People Before Profit-Solidarity councillor Brian McCarthy said an investigation of Uisce Éireann was long overdue, and he added that, for the past 18 months, all across the northside, he was regularly shown by constituents “the muck that’s coming out of their taps” and the damaging effects of discoloured water on kettles, showers and clothes.

Fianna Fáil councillor Terry Shannon disagreed, saying that while he would acknowledge that there were issues with Uisce Éireann, including in his own area, his own experience with the utility had always been positive.

Uisce Éireann to set up taskforce in Cork city dedicated to improving water quality https://t.co/l6EYeOQuX1

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“I have to say that when I ring Irish Water, [as I have] on a number of occasions … I get a really good response and they get work done,” Cllr Shannon said.

Green Party councillor Dan Boyle pointed out that, technically, the issue could not be addressed on a European level before all avenues had been addressed on a national level, and his party colleague Cllr Oliver Moran had recently lodged a complaint against Uisce Éireann with the utilities commissioner.

VOTE

The motion was passed by 14 votes to six, with three abstentions.

Afterwards, Fine Gael councillor Damian Boylan said any communication with Europe would be referred back to the national government and he denounced the motion and vote as “a complete waste of our time, honest to God”.

A subsequent motion by Councillor Bogue that the council write to Local Government Minister Darragh O’Brien to demand that “Uisce Éireann be instructed to urgently implement testing for manganese and other harmful substances in drinking water for residents of the Boreenmanna Road” was agreed without a vote.

Last week, Uisce Éireann announced it had established a taskforce in Cork City, dedicated to improving water quality.

“Acknowledging that water services in Cork City are not meeting the standards that customers rightly expect, Uisce Éireann is assuring the public that it continues to treat the matter with the utmost urgency, including following up with proactive callbacks to customers who have raised concerns over discoloured water,” the company said in a statement.