There's nothing like a bad smell to linger on and on and unfortunately that has been the case around the City since last weekend. Shoppers and business owners were lost for words when the dreadful smell made its presence known last Saturday and the search began to find the source of the stink.

â€œIt smelled like sulphur or rotten eggs and it was sickening. We first noticed it on Saturday and it seemed to linger for about an hour each time the tide was out. We were so unsure of what to do that I ended up ringing the fire brigade to tell them and they had already received calls about it," said Orla Tompkins of Larry Tompkins Bar on Lavitts Quay.

â€œWe definitely lost dining customers on Saturday as they couldn't eat with the smell even though we had the windows and doors closed but the smell just seem to linger for a while. Monday was probably the worst it's been and customers were coming in wondering what the smell was and we had to reassure them that it was from the river.â€

The source of the rotten smell came from the River Lee and was traced to dredging operations that are currently being undertaken and occur every three years.

â€œThe current dredging campaign underway in Cork is expected to last approximately two weeks. There is some odour omitted during dredging and this is a result of sediment and natural decomposition from the sea bed,â€ said a spokesperson for The Port of Cork.

A spokesperson for the EPA said that the disturbance of the marine sediments could give rise to the release of hydrogen sulphide, which would explain the odour.

â€œIn relation to why odours would be inside buildings, this could be related to gases such as hydrogen sulphide travelling back up through sewers and drains in to a building, or they could be drawn into the building through ventilation systems,â€ said a spokesperson for the EPA.

Dredging is expected to last another number of weeks.