{"id":525894,"date":"2026-06-30T13:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T13:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/525894\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T13:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T13:54:08","slug":"uisce-eireann-at-odds-with-hse-on-safety-of-cork-drinking-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/525894\/","title":{"rendered":"Uisce \u00c9ireann at odds with HSE on safety of Cork drinking water"},"content":{"rendered":"

Uisce \u00c9ireann<\/a> has told an Oireachtas committee that clear water is safe to drink, even though the HSE has told the same committee that water colour does not relate to the safety of drinking water.<\/p>\n

Appearing before the Oireachtas joint committee on housing last week, Pat O\u2019Sullivan, Uisce \u00c9ireann\u2019s drinking water compliance senior manager, repeated the company\u2019s advice that clear water is safe to drink.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis primarily would relate to the metals\u00a0manganese<\/a> and iron, which can cause discolouration. They are essentially self-limiting, because at the levels that they cause discolouration, there isn\u2019t a public health impact,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone that has discoloured water, it\u2019s self-limiting, they\u2019re not going to drink it. The levels where it\u2019s clear, it is safe to drink and we\u2019ve proved that comprehensively.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n “So, for example, in relation to the advice we gave in Cork over the last few years where we were advising residents not to consume the water if it was discoloured and allow it to run safe to drink, we have comprehensive data sets to show that that was the case.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cWe provided all of that with the HSE, and they were satisfied that there was no further escalation warranted because the correct advice was being given to consumers individually.\u201d<\/p>\n

Appeared to contradict claim<\/p>\n

However, Dr Anne Sheahan, the HSE\u2019s regional director of public health, appeared to contradict that claim.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe HSE has never advised Uisce \u00c9ireann that water that is clear is safe to drink. We always look at the metric values, we always look at the numerics, so… if it\u2019s over 50 [microgrammes of manganese], they shouldn\u2019t have ongoing exposure to drinking that water,\u201d Dr Sheahan said.<\/p>\n

The EU Drinking Water (2023) Regulations allow a maximum of 50 microgrammes of manganese per litre (\u00b5g\/L) of drinking water.<\/p>\n

Water quality has been an issue in Cork city since summer 2022, when the then Irish Water opened its \u20ac40m Lee Rd water treatment plant.<\/p>\n

Serious concerns<\/p>\n

Documents released last year under Freedom of Information to Thomas Gould, Sinn F\u00e9in TD for Cork North Central, showed the HSE expressed serious concerns about manganese levels in Cork drinking water.<\/p>\n

A February 14, 2025, letter from the HSE to Brian McCarthy, Uisce \u00c9ireann\u2019s regional operations manager, said that in a meeting the previous day, the water utility had clarified that it had not relayed to the public the HSE\u2019s health advice on manganese.<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe HSE emphasises that consumers on affected parts of the supply \u2014 when manganese levels exceeding the regulatory limit have been reported by U\u00c9 [Uisce \u00c9ireann] to the HSE \u2014 need to be given this advice by U\u00c9.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

Mr Gould told The Echo: \u201cThe public should be made aware of the dangers of manganese exceedances and should be told every single time water on their line tests as unsafe. That is a public health necessity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tomorrow and Thursday, the High Court is to hear a legal challenge by Friends of the Irish Environment against the Environmental Protection Agency over drinking water contamination in Cork.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Uisce \u00c9ireann has told an Oireachtas committee that clear water is safe to drink, even though the HSE…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[79,246,2120,61,60,82,776],"class_list":["post-525894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-cork-news","tag-environment","tag-hse","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-uisce-eireann"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}