Some 211,000 boiled water notices were issued in Ireland last year because the tap water was not safe to drink, politicians have heard.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s director of environmental enforcement, Tom Ryan, appeared before the Housing, Local Government and Heritage Committee on Tuesday.
He told TDs “water quality in Ireland is not as good as it should be”.
While over 97% of Ireland’s drinking water is of a high standard, Mr Ryan said supplies to 560,000 people are in need of remedial action.
A report due later this week on the state of 2021 supplies found a number of issues that need action, he added.
They include ensuring adequate disinfection, persistent Trihalomethane (THM) level failures, addressing poor treatment control processes and the need to replace lead water mains in household pipes.
THMs are chemicals found that can be found in water treated with chlorine.
Some studies suggest a link between long term THM exposure with cancer and reproductive impacts according to hse.ie.
“The number of people affected by THM failures has increased in 2022 by over 133,000 due to five supplies being added to the RAL (Remedial Action List),” said Mr Ryan.
“This erodes the progress that was made in 2021, particularly following the commissioning of the new water treatment plant at Vartry.
“It should also be noted that the European Commission is progressing infringement proceedings against Ireland for failure to address THM compliance.”
Ireland’s drinking water is sourced from rivers, lakes, springs and groundwater and must be treated to make it safe to drink before being supplied to the population.
Irish Water’s job is to provide drinking water to regulation standards through about 800 drinking water treatment plants operated by local authorities through service agreements.
While the Environment Protection Agency is responsible for enforcing any breaches of drinking water regulations.
Mr Ryan said “poor treatment control processes” pose another risk.
“Inadequate response to plant alarms was a significant contributor to the incidents in the Gorey and Ballymore Eustace plants, which in the case of Gory resulted in illness and hospitalisations in 2021.”
Some 52 people fell ill after drinking unsafe water in Co Wexford.
Mr Ryan said there was also a marked increase in boiled water notices in 2021 (211,000), compared with the previous year (75,000).
He put the rise down to improved vigilance, but added the primary cause was failure in disinfection or pathogen removal processes which are not yet robust enough to mitigate the need for boiled water notices.
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