THE Environmental Protection Agency expects to have definitive test results later today on the contamination of public water supplies in Nenagh, Co Tipperary.
A spokeswoman for Proctor and Gamble said it had "not yet been confirmed that Proctor and Gamble are associated with the incident". But the company took it "very seriously" and was working closely with the relevant authorities, she said.
A team of EPA investigators has been in the town, where people have been depending on tankers for the past week to supply drinking water, and it is intended to publish a full report on the incident once all the facts have been established.
Mr Iain MacLean, one of the agency's directors, said the EPA team was "going through everything in detail" in an effort to "pull the whole lot together" by taking more samples of the contaminated water and checking on the work done to date by other agencies.
The initial tests had "not indicated anything in particular", but he said that the EPA's laboratory in Kilkenny was "working flat out to tie down the source of the problem" as well as carrying out a detailed analysis of whether the water was now drinkable.
Mr MacLean said the US owned cosmetics company, which employs 300 at its plant in Gortlandroe, Nenagh, was co operating with the EPA's investigation. A full list of all the raw materials it used in the manufacture of Oil of Ulay and other products is available to the agency.
This information was supplied to the EPA as part of Proctor and Gamble's application for an integrated pollution control licence covering all emissions from the Nenagh plant. "We are asking a lot of questions about drainage systems on the site," Mr MacLean said.
Proctor and Gamble's plant is located within 100 yards of the well which partly supplies Nenagh's water. It is on the Gortlandroe industrial estate, which was developed by Shannon Development; an extension to the plant was opened three years ago by the Tanaiste, Mr Spring.
Earlier, in an RTE radio interview, Mr MacLean said the EPA would prosecute if there was sufficient evidence.
Ms Sally Woodage, public affairs manager at Proctor and Gamble in the UK, said: "Obviously, our sympathies go out to the people in the local area for the inconvenience they have suffered." Denying that the company was "complacent" about any of its environmental control systems, she said it would work with the EPA to improve them.
Mr Ger Crowley, assistant chief executive of the Mid Western Health Board, stressed that people in Nenagh should heed official advice not to use the town's public water supply for drinking until the testing process had been completed and the water was declared fit for human consumption.
He said public health personnel were constantly sampling the emergency water supply to ensure it met the required standards.
