Enquiry to be held into NI Water crisis

A full enquiry into the current water crisis has been announced by the Regional Development Minister, Connor Murphy, MLA. After being briefed following a board meeting of NI Water on Friday the Minister said "We will be submitting who will be conducting the inquiry next week to the OFMDFM, but it's quite clear there was a significant operational failure, as well as a failure to recognise in the middle of that that things were going wrong".

This follows on from criticism from a number of senior political figures, including the First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness who have said that the water service is “shambolic, ineffective and not fit for purpose” and “that people at NI Water need to be held to account" respectively.

Meanwhile, Belfast City Council has held an inter-agency meeting at City Hall to assess how people are being helped through the emergency.