Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-16
============================================================

Ryan O'Meara (FF), Tipperary North

I raise the concerns and annoyance of the thousands of people whom I represent in Newport, Ballina and Birdhill and who faced a disastrous summer in the context of water quality, a lack of drinking water and boil water notices as a result of Uisce Éireann's ill-handling of communications and a lack of clarity from Uisce Éireann on exactly what was happening. We are talking about thousands of households, or customers, as Uisce Éireann calls them. These are thousands of people whom I represent. On numerous occasions, the water was cut off and stopped in two large towns and a village. There has been boil water notice after boil water notice. The most recent update I got from Uisce Éireann was that the last boil water notice was because of heavy rainfall. As we go into winter in Ireland, I am worried if that is what Uisce Éireann thinks is causing a boil water notice for thousands of people.
My main criticism and critique is of the communication and the information provided. All of us in this House struggle to get accurate information from Uisce Éireann. I cannot advise my constituents or even keep them safe under boil water notices if the accurate information is not coming from Uisce Éireann. What are the Government's plans to make Uisce Éireann more accountable to this House and more accountable to us, as public representatives, when we ask it direct questions to ensure we get answers that are accurate in a timely manner? Uisce Éireann will get more than €12 billion from this Government between now and 2030 for infrastructure investment. The very least that we deserve from that, outside of an adequate water and wastewater network, are proper responses, timely updates and accurate information.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-16