IRISH WATER HAS said the boil water notice affecting 600,000 people in the greater Dublin area will not be lifted for at least another day. 

The notice was issued yesterday after the disinfection process, which makes water safe to drink, may have been compromised at the Leixlip Water Treatment Plant.

People are urged to ensure they heed the advice and boil their water for drinking purposes, brushing their teeth, preparing food and infants’ bottles.

Irish Water said that the issues at the plant have been resolved but the affected water is still travelling through the system.

The areas affected include: Artane, Ashtown, Balbriggan, Baldoyle, Ballyboghill, Celbridge, Clonee, Clonsilla, Coolock, Coolquoy, Corduff, Darndale, Donabate, Dunboyne, Finglas, Garristown, Glasnevin, Howth, Kilbarrack, Kilclone, Killester, Kinsaley, Leixlip, Lusk, Malahide, Maynooth, Naul, Palmerstown, Poppintree, Ronanstown, Rush, Skerries, St Margaret’s, Straffan, Sutton and Swords.

Affected areas Irish Water Irish Water

“This morning, during a meeting with the HSE we reviewed the test results and the impact of the Boil Water Notice. At the forefront of all discussions was the need to protect human health and that is why the Boil Water Notice will stay in place for now,” Irish Water customer strategy manager Yvonne Harris said today. 

Irish Water has said it is contacting all registered vulnerable customers who are affected by this boil water notice to advise them.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), meanwhile, said it will carry out an assessment of operations at the plant and will undertake an audit in the coming days. 

“We take any incident of this nature very seriously in order to ensure public safety, trust and confidence in the water supply,” it said in a statement.

The audit will examine the treatment processes in place and the actions taken to address the issues which led to the notice being put in place.

“The EPA will ensure that any recommendations of that audit will be implemented by Irish Water,” the statement added.

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Why is a boil water notice in place and what could happen if you drink it?

The HSE has said there was a danger that untreated water in the network may contain cysts of cryptosporidium and giardia.

These may cause gastrointestinal infections with symptoms such as diarrhoea and stomach cramps. It advised people who develop such symptoms to consult their general practitioners for testing and treatment.

Speaking on Morning Ireland on RTÉ Radio 1 today, Irish Water’s Harris said that the problem was caused by a small mechanical failure in part of the plant.

She apologised to customers over the incident and because the company’s website crashed yesterday, as huge volumes of people logged on to see if they were affected: 

The timing was really disastrous from an Irish Water perspective. Typically when we send out alerts we direct people to our website.

“The fact that the website was not available to people was inconvenient again. We would like to apologise to customers and actually thank media, who spread the message, our elected and local representatives. We worked with departments. The Department of Education got a message out to schools,” she added.