THE FIRST thing that strikes you on entering Mr John Moroney's kitchen is the chemical smell. It's not that the kitchen is dirty. The source of the smell is the foul nature of the water coming from the tap in the sink.
And that's the way it has been for almost a month, as Nenagh Urban District Council grapples with the problem of restoring the town's heavily polluted water supply.
Who polluted it? That question may be answered by the end of this week, when the Environmental Protection Agency produces a report on the matter.
According to EPA sources, a prosecution or prosecutions will follow once the polluter has been identified.
In the Moroney kitchen, it takes just minutes for the tongue to become dry and for the nose to experience the same sensation one experiences in Cork's heavily industrialised lower harbour when the wind blows from a certain direction.
Whatever substance entered part of Nenagh's water supply was a powerful one because, even at this remove, the acrid smell from the water is immediately discernible.
"My wife and our two daughters can only use the shower if they lather themselves with massive amounts of a very strong shower gel. If they didn't, there would be that awful chemical smell from their bodies.
"We have to save what little drinking water we have, so that means very few cups of tea. I've even had to resort to an electric razor. There's no way I would risk putting that stuff on my face or near my mouth," Mr Moroney said.
"I wouldn't use the water from the tap on the front lawn either. It might kill everything. We Just don't know what's in it."
Mr Moroney works in a local factory by night. His wife, Marguerita, works by day, and their two girls, aged 7 and 12, have just returned to school after the summer holidays. Yesterday afternoon he was preparing their food before leaving for work.
"You'll notice that I am not doing any vegetables. We don't have enough water to prepare vegetables and we certainly wouldn't risk the tap water.
"For the past few weeks, we have been trying to eat out as much as possible, and when we cook at home the only veg we will have is from a tin. The clothes are a big problem, too. We have to use oceans of powerful detergents to mask the smell from the water."
Three times a day a Nenagh UDC water tank calls to Mr Moroney's home at Yewston estate near the town centre. He uses a plastic ice bucket to fill up, as well as basins and pots.
When he comes home from work, often as late as 2 a.m., he can't shower because of the reduction in supply at that hour, nor can he make a cup of tea because he has to ensure that the children have enough water for breakfast.
The position is the same in hundreds of other homes in Nenagh which are supplied by the Gortland Roe well, close to the Procter and Gamble factory, which employs more than 400 people in the town.
Naturally, suspicious eyes have turned towards the factory, but yesterday no company official in Nenagh was prepared to speak to The Irish Times. All queries were referred instead to a spokeswoman in London, who said that the company was denying responsibility and added that, up to now, there was no evidence to support a case against it.
But the reality for people like Andy and Mary Flynn, who run a public house and bed and breakfast in the town, is that their business is being affected, whoever caused the pollution.
They became aware of the problem after Mr Flynn made a pot of tea one morning recently which left a taste of TCP in the mouth. Later, when cleaning glasses in the pub dishwasher, he noticed white foam developing. Thinking that this might have resulted from the detergent he used, he washed the next load without any detergent, but the result was the same.
Nenagh, which has a population of 6,000, uses 500,000 gallons of water a day. A quarter of this supply has been affected by the latest pollution incident, which follows another serious one some years ago involving slurry. The cost of ferrying in water to the townspeople is believed to be about £10,000 a week.
According to the UDC, the Mid Western Health Board is constantly monitoring the water supply, and so far there has been no reported increase in illness in the town.
The UDC is trying to locate alternative sources of water and a decision has been taken to abandon the Gortland Roe well as a source of supply.