Committee urged to give platform to Cork community impacted by boil water notices for a decade 

A Cork TD has called on the Oireachtas committee on public petitions to give a platform to a community which has seen its water supply adversely affected by boil water notices for more than a decade.

The petitions committee processes petitions on matters of public interest received from Oireachtas members and from members of the public.

Sinn Féin TD Pat Buckley called for the committee to discuss “the many years of hardship” suffered by people affected by years of unsafe water in the Whitegate public water supply area.

Mr Buckley asked the committee that the local community be given a platform to share their stories and to seek a speedy resolution to the issue.

“This supply area serves 9,000 households, and a boil water notice was renewed for the area in May of this year, having been in place continuously since October 2023.

“This only tells part of the story though, as a BWN [boil water notice] has been issued for Whitegate numerous times since 2012,” said Mr Buckley.

The Cork East TD added that a boil water notice had been in place for four years before it was temporarily lifted and then reapplied in mid-2016, something he had raised in the Dáil at the time: “The people living in areas surrounding Aghada, Churchtown, Ballycotton, Saleen, Shanagarry, Ballinacura, and Cloyne have been dealing with unpotable water supply for at least 12 years now.

“A BWN means water is, if untreated, unsafe for drinking, brushing teeth, and washing [uncooked] food.

“This presents many additional difficulties for households.

“Families are faced with a need to either purchase expensive and wasteful supplies of bottled water or run a system of constant boiling and cooling of a stored water supply.

“People have reported to me that pets have become ill from the water if untreated.

“There is also serious concerns about bathing children in untreated water.”

Mr Buckley said that more than a decade of “nearly unbroken” boil water notices was “a scandal”, and a failure to provide safe water was “an indictment of the State”.

“Plans have been made for an upgrade to the Kilva Water Treatment Plant to resolve this issue, but ... public faith in a speedy delivery of this solution is low,” he said.

Mr Buckley said he had been raising the issue of boil water notices in the Whitegate area since he was first elected in 2016, and he believed the petitions committee was well placed to give a platform to the people of the community.