“Irish water has danced around this issue for far too long”
Independent Councillor Declan Power has called on Louth County Council to liaise with Irish water and investigate the ongoing problems experienced by Clogherhead residents at Castlecoo and Strand Hill.
As temperatures across Ireland plunged to as low as -6C last week with severe frost, ice, freezing fog and wintry showers, this brought many leaks and burst pipes putting pressure on local authorities and Irish Water to deal with.
“In Clogherhead the residents of Strand Hill and Castlecoo Hill went almost four days without any water supply causing great annoyance and frustration to all who live there especially those with families and small children”, Councillor Power said at Mondays Louth County Council meeting.
“The lack of water during the cold blast doesn’t just affect the basic requirements of cooking, cleaning, bathing or flushing the toilet but also heating systems, leading to plumbing issues and property damage.
“The water issues and concerns of residents in these areas is not a recent one. This issue has been constant for well over ten years.”
“When the weather is too hot – No water, when the weather is too cold – No water and everything in between has either waters outages or low pressure.”
“This situation has gone on far too long for these residents and something needs to be done to ensure that these problems don’t persist.”
“We can all appreciate that in winter we may get a leak or a burst pipe that needs fixing or in summer we may experience some low pressure for a day or so but the residents in these areas of Castlecoo Hill and Strand Hill experience these issues far more frequently than they should and consistently go 4-5 days without water.
In the summer of 2021, they went nine days without water. This is totally unacceptable” Councillor Power said.
“A lot of the issues from the reservoir at Castlecoo Hill are often based on supply and demand and that there just isn’t the capacity for everyone. The pumping station is also a problem. While the residents of Castlecoo hill are pumped water from a separate pump, the residents of Strand Hill have to endure water pressure difficulties due to their location on an elevated site.”
“When water is low in Drogheda, the capacity in the reservoir is reduced by releasing water to the Drogheda area, leaving these residents without water or low pressure.”
“Irish water has danced around this issue for far too long and I am calling on this council to please liaise with Irish water and conduct a full investigation with this ongoing problem and let’s get solutions around the demand and supply, water pump station and I believe that upgrading the 4” pipe from Drogheda to Termonfeckin that has caused many problems in that area will help fix this one.
“Since Mondays LCC meeting I have written to the Irish Water Operational Assets Lead, Michael Cunniffe and requested a meeting to discuss the ongoing water problems for the residents of the area and for Irish Water to provide a solutions plan to include improved infrastructure to prevent long term water shortages.”
Bernie Woods of Louth County Council told Councillor Power that they are aware of the difficulties at the reservoir at Castlecoo Hill and the problems it was causing residents in the area.
“We have liaised with Irish Water on a number of occasions to deal with this. This is ultimately the responsibility of Irish Water” she said.
