COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF LUCAN/PALMERSTOWN/FONTHILL AREA COMMITTEE

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

MOTION NO. 4

MOTION: Councillor L. O'Toole

This committee requests the Chief Executive to provide to the members a detailed report from IW regarding the recent boiling water notice served to many parts of the county, namely Lucan area. To include in the report confirmation regarding the bug Cryptosporidium that was reported to be in the water and to state if it was human faeces, animal faeces or both. For sometime now the people of Lucan have called on IW to switch its water source back to Ballymore. Since then many other areas have requested same. Could IW explain why it’s not possible to do this, is there no option to increase the water treatment facility at Ballymore Eustace.

REPORT:

Irish Water were requested to provide a report to this motion and have responded as follows:

The Environmental Protection Agency carried out two audits of the Leixlip Water Treatment Plant. The results of these audits are available on the EPA website. Irish Water is currently considering the results of these audits and will respond in due course. The Boil Water Notices were put in place as a precautionary measure because of operational issues at the plant which meant there was a risk of breakthrough of Cryptosporidium and Giardia into the water supply. Irish Water has a monitoring programme for Cryptosporidium and Giardia at the Leixlip Water Treatment Plant. All samples taken during the period of the two Boil Water Notices were satisfactory.

The water supply in the Greater Dublin Area (GDA) comes from a number of different Water Treatment Plants, primarily the Liffey plants at Leixlip Water Treatment Plant (WTP) and Ballymore Eustace WTP. The water balance between the two is a function of the supply demand balance from time to time and is managed on a daily basis.

Following network reconfiguration, areas in South Dublin County Council are now being supplied from Ballymore Eustace. The management of the network is under constant review and reconfigurations of the network can be required to sustain supply. As outlined before, hard water is naturally occurring and is fully consistent with safe drinking water.

Members are reminded that Irish Water have established a Local Representative Service Desk.  This Service Desk can be contacted at localrepsupport@water.ie or at 1890 178 178.  Irish Water also arrange Councillor clinics, typically these take place quarterly in County Hall and Irish Water send invites directly to members.