Advisory body calls for 'significant investment' to improve water quality

Vivienne Clarke

A senior inspector at the Water Advisory Body has called for significant investment by Irish Water to address the issue of water quality.

Michelle Minihan told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that at the end of Quarter 1 to March 2022, there were just over 13,500 people on boil water notices, the vast majority of which were long term and had been in place for more than 30 days, meaning there would have to be "significant investment" to address the issues.

Ms Minihan pointed out that today alone, there were 22 boil water notices in place, serving about 5,500 people, and 18 of those notices are long term. “It is a huge frustration and burden for communities that are affected by it.”

A report by the Water Advisory Body has highlighted that Irish Water’s customer response times are now at the lowest level since the metric was set up to measure the utility company’s performance. Irish Water’s ‘incident closeout’, which is required to be done within two months, is at its lowest level.

“There's clearly a need for Irish Water to improve their customer complaints management, which we've highlighted in our quarterly report, but also a need to address these issues for communities affected by boil water notices.”