Farm leaders have challenged a suggestion by Wicklow County Council that farmers may have caused contamination of a water supply in the south of the county.
The council has alerted consumers attached to the Carnew, Shillelagh and Tinahely water supply scheme not to use their tap water for drinking, food preparation, washing or indeed any purpose other than flushing toilets.
Local people were told that the supply was being turned off until the source of the contamination had been identified. The council has advised that the water will not be usable before the weekend.
However, Mr Francis Fanning, a local farmer who chairs the IFA's national environment committee, has taken exception to a suggestion from the council in a local radio announcement that the source of the contamination may be agricultural.
"They seem to have decided that the source was farming, without having proof. To me, that is an inflammatory statement that could cause bad feeling between people in urban areas and those working in agriculture.
"The council does not yet know the source of the problem, yet they go on to suggest that it could be from farming. We were blamed for incidents in Galway and Clare recently and both turned out to have nothing to do with agriculture. Now it is the same in Wicklow, with the blame coming to farmers before they have found out the source of the problem.
"I would be the first to look for the full rigours of the law to be applied if a farmer was to blame, but we don't know that yet. The contaminated water scheme also flows through industrial areas, sewage treatment plants and towns that don't have treatment plants as well as forestry. I am not questioning the work of the council in ensuring that people are provided with clean water, but it is not right to blame the agricultural sector without proof."
Those affected by the contamination are continuing to use water tankers in Tinahely, Shillelagh and Carnew to replenish their supplies of fresh drinking water.
While household supplies were being gradually restored from yesterday morning, the council said that the supply should still be regarded as contaminated and warned that the situation would not change before the weekend.