Thousands of people in Athlone and its surrounds will need to continue to boil their water until 6pm this evening.
Irish Water officials were alerted to an issue with the disinfection process at its treatment plant for the town on Wednesday night which resulted in small quantities of inadequately disinfected water entering the supply.
Following consolation with the HSE, it was decided to implement a boil water notice on Wednesday night for a period of almost 24 hours.
The issue at the plant has now been resolved and to ensure that none of the affected water is consumed, the public is being urged to continue to boil their water until tea time this evening.
John Gavin, Asset Operations Lead with Irish Wate, revealed an issue with a valve not closing caused the problem:
"The last incidence of being passed through the valve was at 9 o'clock on Wednesday so we're looking at nearly two days since we had any of this unproperly disinfected water getting into the clear water tank and subsequently into the reservoir.
We're certain that all of the water will have passed through the system and everything will return to normal for our customers in Athlone."
You can hear John's full interview here:
