Alarm failure at water plant helped Gorey incident go unnoticed

An alarm system failure at a treatment plant supplying water to residents of Gorey, Co Wexford, helped a "high priority disinfection incident" go unnoticed, leading to dozens of people becoming ill from contaminated supplies, a council official has said.

Wexford County Council, which met local elected representatives on Tuesday, also said a week-long delay in reporting the problem to both Irish Water and the Health Service Executive (HSE) was under investigation.

Officials are expected to begin contacting the 52 members of the public who became ill as a consequence of last month's failure following the urging of Fianna Fáil councillor Andrew Bolger, who attended Tuesday's meeting.

“Obviously they ended up seriously ill so if you want to build trust again it would be a good place to start,” Mr Bolger said of efforts now under way to identify the chain of errors and to ensure future similar episodes do not occur.

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The Gorey incident was one of two treatment plant issues last month that affected the drinking water of almost 900,000 people. A small number of people required hospital treatment.

Following the local meeting on Tuesday, county secretary David Minogue said the "alarm system failed to alert that there was a high priority disinfection incident. This matter has now been resolved."

“Wexford County Council is currently investigating all the circumstances surrounding this incident, and is also providing follow-up assistance to the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and Irish Water in relation to the incident.”rr5

The contamination occurred on August 19th, but was not reported by the council to Irish Water until August 26th. Since then the council said it has been liaising with Irish Water on a daily basis.

It has undertaken a full review of all alarm settings at the Creagh plant, carried out repairs, and serviced equipment. Mr Minogue also said that on-site testing has been strengthened and it has prepared a request to Irish Water to increase staff numbers.

Meanwhile, Irish Water has committed to undertaking refresher training for all water services teams across the country and reviews of the top 20 treatment plants over the next two-week period.

“We are currently engaging with all 31 local authorities on the need to report incidents to allow for timely risk assessments to protect public health,” a spokesman said. “As part of the Drinking Water Safety Plan approach, Irish Water will audit all water treatment plants in due course.”