Sir, – Only Irish politicians could make a political football out of a septic tank. This is a public health matter, not a political one.
The silence from environmental health officers and the HSE is deafening.
The solutions are engineering- based, not politically-based. When the true problem is identified by engineers without any “spin”, then and only then have politicians a role in addressing how solutions are funded. Mattie McGrath, Marian Harkin, Phil Hogan or Éamon Ó Cuív would not scurry under a car in a NCT centre and tell the inspector that the brakes are okay.
Wastewater is a hazardous product and based on how the HSE kept records of children who died while under its care, we do not know whether we have already lost a sick child or immuno-compromised person by groundwater pollution. If we haven’t, it is only a matter of time. Let us hear from the HSE, EPA and EU, who should be setting the parameters for this, before we have a tragedy.
A polluted well is an inconvenience, a fatality is a different matter. – Yours, etc,