Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy has been slammed for "failing to take responsibility" for the crisis that has left 600,000 people in the greater Dublin area with undrinkable water.
Monday night’s boil water notice was the issued in ten days at the Leixlip treatment plant, which has led to chaos among households in the capital and beyond.
Now Fianna Fáil TD Darragh O’Brien has criticised the minister for failing to take charge of the boil water notice, warning that the ongoing emergency is placing people's health at serious risk.
Irish Water yesterday admitted to the Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning & Local Government that work to upgrade the Leixlip water plant - the source of the large-scale boil water notice - would not be finished until 2020.
The Fianna Fail Spokesperson on Housing, Planning and Local Government said after the meeting that Minister Murphy needed to "step up" to rectify what he labelled a "ridiculous situation for a a first world country".
Deputy O'Brien fumed: "Minister Murphy failed to step up to address the situation where hundreds of thousands of people were forced to boil their water for routine household duties - and here we are now, back at square one.
"The Minister should have intervened and taken action, but he didn’t and now over 600,000 people are inconvenienced again.
"It’s less than a fortnight since the last boil water notice was lifted. This is a ridiculous situation for a first world country to find itself in and there are serious questions for Minister Murphy to answer.
"There has been a real breakdown in confidence with households now dependent on bottled water to cook with and to drink.
"It’s clear that lessons have not been learned from previous incidents and that warnings from the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] as far back as March were not heeded.
"Minister Murphy needs to take control of this very serious issue - or people’s health will be put at risk.
"It’s highly inexcusable that this has happened again, and urgent action must be taken to prevent similar incidents in the future."
Meanwhile, former mayor of South Dublin Mark Ward has blasted Irish Water for for the most recent notice.
The warning also lead to panic-buying of bottled water in supermarkets seeing shelves empty within hours.
The local Sinn Fein councillor said: “There is confusion, anger, and fear amongst people who are currently served by the Leixlip water plant.
“Irish Water also reported that the reason for the most recent boil water notice was due to heavy rainfall.
“We live in Ireland; heavy rain is a regular occurrence. This does not fill me with confidence that this will not happen again.”
