Bandon's H2O Labcheck launch means jobs boost

THE official opening of a new water quality and innovation laboratory ‘H20labcheck’ in Bandon by the Junior Health Minister Jim Daly will mean a jobs boost for the town.

Co-founders Aidan and William Holland confirmed that the parent company, Acorn Water, has already advertised for four of the seven new jobs that are to be created over the next 12 months in the areas of graphic development, environmental science, international marketing, sales, finance and content creation.

The new high-tech lab is a far cry from the company’s humble beginnings in a spare bedroom in the home of Bill and Eileen Holland in 1991. Since then the business has grown to be able to 100% fund the new laboratory at Glaslyn Road in Bandon.

At the company HQ there are billboards proudly displaying comments by some of their satisfied commercial customers, but in 2006 Aidan Holland developed a water sampling kit that could be readily used by domestic consumers.

A web portal to make that service even more widely available was developed in 2013 and it has underlined the continued growth of the firm. Since the new lab opened last January, the company has seen more than a doubling of growth on the same period in 2017. 

William Holland said this would not have been possible without the vision of his parents – Bill and Eileen – and the team of 10 employees.

Minister Daly congratulated Bill and Eileen ‘who dreamed the dream’ and Aidan and William ‘who stepped up to the mark and brought the business into the next century.

‘Over the last few months,’ Deputy Daly said, ‘the country has come to realise just how much we rely on running water to homes and business across the island.’