Bottled water report published by FSAI

A REPORT that detailed contamination of some bottled water has finally been published by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI).

The authority had been accused by Fine Gael and Labour of withholding information from the public.

The FSAI continued to defend its decision not to “name and shame” the companies involved. It said that under EU and national legislation, the FSAI can name names if there is a public health risk or if there was non-compliance.

Several of the biggest bottled water companies in the market, including Galway Water, Kerry Spring Water, Tipperary Water, Glenpatrick and Ballygowan issued statements saying their products were not involved.

The 37-page final report issued yesterday confirmed the draft findings which found that 6.3 per cent of samples showed evidence of coliforms as a result of faecal contamination, indicating poor hygiene standards on the part of the bottler. More than 7 per cent of samples were found to have not met legal standards or were unsatisfactory compared with guideline criteria.