'Hard to trust the water' after living on boil notices for nine years, says Cork woman
Denise Reck, a mother of two from Castleredmond, sits at her kitchen table surrounded by bottled water — her family’s only reliable source of drinking water after nearly a decade of ongoing boiled water notices. Picture: Chani Anderson
Denise Reck often wonders if a split-second decision to rinse her niece’s milk bottle with her domestic supply resulted in her becoming ill for a couple of days.
The Midleton woman said the incident sticks in her head among many others during almost nine years of living with boil water notices in her family home.
Her home is one of the last on the Whitegate line and she, her husband Edward, and two children — aged 12 and eight — have a strict daily routine in a house that has a heavy demand on water.
“We are buying a lot of water," she told the
Having visitors means constant reminders to them about not using the water and being on alert to ensure that baby bottles and soothers are not rinsed under the tap.
“Everything is a struggle, you can’t wash an apple under it," she added.
The family is now planning to host a First Holy Communion party in the coming weeks for their youngest daughter — which will bring added stress because of the current boil water notic e, which has been in place since October 2023.
“It is something we should not have to be warning people about," she said.
She is also concerned about the dental issues her children are having, because “they are not getting the fluoride they should be getting”.
More than 10,000 households on the Whitegate Regional Water Supply Scheme are waiting for a replacement scheme to service the area which takes in villages including Aghada, Churchtown, Ballycotton, Saleen, Shanagarry, and Ballinacurra, as well as parts of Cloyne and the Castleredmond area of Midleton.
Frustrated with the ongoing situation, Denise set up a Facebook group last year where people share their concerns and experiences.
They had been expecting the issue to be sorted by this year, but it is now anticipated that the replacement scheme may not be in place for another two years.
She recalls being regularly put on boil water notices prior to the current long-term one, particularly when rain fell.
An eight-month boil water notice was put in place when her youngest daughter was born.
On another occasion, she says, the boil water notice was issued on Christmas Day.
The family spends up to €50 per month on water — which they use for drinking, for soaking ham, preparing vegetables, and washing teeth.
“On top of that, we have the extra recycling as well. It’s an extraordinary amount of bottles.”
The day-to-day reality of living on a boil water notice means that it is very difficult to trust water anywhere, as Denise explains: “We went on holidays during the summer, and me and my kids were hesitant to put our toothbrushes under the running tap.”
Of the present situation, she says: “It is expensive and it is part of our human rights to have clean drinking water and we can’t drink the water.”
She points out that, because the order from Uisce Éireann is a boil water notice, the residents are not entitled to compensation because a “do not consume” order is not in place.
