Details of a review on the recent issues with Leixlip Water Treatment Plant in Fingal have revealed "serious failings" from Irish Water.

Last week, around 615,000 households were issued a Boil water notice due to issues at the plant.

An EPA review has since been conducted, in which it was revealed Irish Water had been issued warnings from the agency from as early as March 2019.

Fianna Fáil representative Darragh O'Brien has hit out at the utility over its lack of action.

Deputy O'Brien said: "The review clearly points to serious failings by Irish Water to heed warnings from the EPA as far back as March. The result has been massive disruption to hundreds of thousands of households and businesses. The report found that Irish Water and Fingal County Council had failed to implement the main recommendations of the EPA's previous audit of Leixlip Water Treatment Plant in March 2019.

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"In particular there was a failure to install automatic shutdown when critical plant alarms are not responded to, as previously recommended, which was a contributory factor to the incident. I am pleased to see that the automatic shutdown system has now been put in place, as was recommended last March. It is just a pity that it took the events of last week to make this happen.

"Next week officials from Irish Water are due before an Oireachtas committee. I will use this opportunity to grill them over why these recommendations were not acted upon in a timely manner. Furthermore, what steps have Irish Water taken to ensure the problems will not emerge again and that the EPA report will be fully implemented, particularly the recommendation to improve and enhance the Leixlip plant by including Ultraviolet technologies in the water treatment process. Minister Murphy needs to take responsibility and ensure Irish Water for fills its duties and have the resources to do so," concluded Deputy O’Brien.

(CM/MH)