Updated: 3pm 1st June
A local councillor has hit out after Irish Water told a Letterkenny resident she would have to invest her own money in order to secure future supplies.
Cllr Donal ‘Mandy’ Kelly said the woman, who had made a formal complaint to the utility, is one of a number of residents in the Bomany and New Mills area who have been without water since last Friday.
In the response, seen by Donegal Daily, she was informed there was ‘no operational solution’ to ongoing issues in the area.
“Customers will need investment to be assured of a resilient water supply i.e. they must invest in private water storage and pumping stations,” Irish Water said.
Speaking this afternoon, Cllr Kelly said the response was ‘absolutely shocking’.
He added that he was seriously concerned that the utility was taking over the running of the water service from Donegal County Council next month.
“In their response to the customer, Irish Water is more or less saying to people in the Bomany and Newmills area that they must invest in their own water supply. That is absolutely shocking,” he said.
“This is the same Irish Water that is about to take over the running of water services in the county and country. These people have been suffering for a number of years in relation to low pressure and interruptions in supply. In fact, they have gone a full five days now without any mains water.”
Cllr Kelly said he was not going to ‘stand back and let this’ (takeover) happen.
“We need to speak up and stop Irish Water taking over our water services,” he continued
“We (councillors) even struggle to get in touch with them. They are taking over next month and that will be an absolute disaster. Our TDs have been far too quiet in the Dail about this, too. These customers are paying taxes and water bills and deserve better than that.”
Donegal Daily contacted Uisce Eireann for a comment on the claim that a customer was told to invest in their own supplies. The response in full is as follows:
In December there were interruptions to supply in the Bomany area of Letterkenny as a result of increased leakage, exacerbated by increased demand due to the severe cold weather.
In more recent months we have continued to see increased demand in some localised elevated areas resulting in reduced water pressure and associated outages and we are currently investigating this with our Local Authority partners Donegal County Council.
Uisce Éireann understands the inconvenience such outages can cause and apologies for any inconvenience caused. In particular, Uisce Éireann understands that any interruption to supply can impact houses in elevated areas, which we understand is impacting some areas of Bomany and Newmills. When outages do occur, it can take two to three hours following such outages for normal water supply to be fully restored to all areas, especially for customers on higher ground or at the end of the network.
Uisce Éireann is undertaking a review of service interruptions in these areas from an operations and asset management perspective and will continue to work with Donegal County Council to ensure security of supply. Currently survey work is underway across a number of areas in Donegal to assess water pressure including the installation of data loggers. This survey work will allow further analysis in these areas and assessment including trend analysis. Once this survey work is complete, more details assessment will be completed to determine next steps.
In parallel we have also undertaking leak detection works in the Bomany, Newmills areas and have fixed a number of leaks. We continue to ask Uisce Éireann customers to assists us with the identification and fixing of leaks and to improve water conservation in the Bomany, Newmills, Conwal and Tullgay areas. We understand the inconvenience that low water pressure is causing in elevated areas and are working to reduce leaks in these areas. We are also asking the public to do what they can to conserve water by turning off taps and checking for leaks in outside taps or unoccupied premises. If anyone notices a leak in the public network they should report it to Uisce Éireann via www.water.ie or by calling 1800 278 278.
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