The mayor of Galway city has called for the permanent removal of a parasite from the county's water supply which is being blamed for a widespread outbreak of diarrhoea in the area.
Mayor Niall O' Brolcháin has today said he is to put an emergency motion before the city council calling on it to liaise with the county council over water treatment measures to remove the microscopic parasite, cryptosporidium, from the regional water supply and ensure it does not enter it again.
His comments come as tens of thousands of Galway residents were advised to begin boiling their drinking water following a suspected contamination of the water supply.
A joint statement issued last evening by the Health Service Executive (HSE) in the west, Galway County Council and Galway City Council, advised the public to boil water used for human consumption until further notice.
"This measure is advised in an attempt to reduce new infections," it said.
There has been a marked increase in recent weeks in the number of people suffering from diarrhoea in the county. The illness, which has affected more than 40 people this year, is understood to have been caused by ingesting cryptosporidium.
However, testing of the water conducted to date has failed to detect the presence of the parasite. Further tests are to be carried out on the water supply today to try to establish the cause.
Mr O'Brolcháin, who "strongly advised" locals to boil their water before drinking it, said it is not uncommon for the infection called cryptosporidiosis to manifest itself during the lambing season but said the parasite was more commonly found in sheep than in people.
He said the parasite is not removed from the water supply by the normal methods of water treatment used in Galway and called for a new approach to tackle the problem.
Mr O'Brolcháin said: "I am satisfied that the local authorities and the HSE are doing everything they can at this stage ... however, in the longer term, we need to take measures to ensure that cryptosporidium is removed from the water supply, as this issue has been highlighted before and nothing has been done to permanently remove it."
A spokesman for Galway county council's environment division told ireland.comcontinuous sampling of the water supply is ongoing today, but test results would now be sent to a laboratory in Scotland and results could not be expected before Tuesday or Wednesday.
The areas to which the notice applies include Galway city, Barna, Carnmore, Athenry, Claregalway, Corofin, Headford, Lackagh, Oranmore, Tuam and Turloughmore.