For the first time in years a member of the community in Castleisland has made a complaint in public about the quality of our domestic water supply.
We’ve had the odd rumpus here and there about burst pipes and gushers on Main Street – but relatively little about the actual quality of the water – until now.
Tralee native, Castleisland resident, Elaine Courtney spoke to Jerry O’Sullivan on his Radio Kerry morning programme Kerry Today.
” I simply told Radio Kerry that we can’t drink the tap water here for the past week and that’s not good enough.
It’s certainly not good enough now that we’re expected to pay for the water and we’ll be getting bills for it,” said Elaine this evening.
A representative of Kerry County Council visited Elaine in her home in An Caisteán Mór shortly after the broadcast and he did a chemical test on a sample of the water and it passed that test.
“All I know is that we can’t drink the water here as it tastes and smells of chlorine or something like that. I don’t even know what’s in it that’s making it so bad to taste. I’m certainly not going to give it to my little girl, Gráinne as she’s been here at home all week with a ‘Croup’ and an ear infection,” she said.
“I’m trying to get her to take some water to ease her throat after all that rasping and we’re having to buy bottled water for her. That’s why I made to complaint today as I think it’s just not good enough that we have a water supply and we can’t drink it,” she concluded.
For anyone wishing to find out more about what’s in our water supply they can click on the link here and read, I’d imagine with some trepidation, a pdf of a 2011 publication.
http://www.kerrycoco.ie/en/allservices/waterservices/waterquality/thefile,7726,en.pdf
