Tommy Broughan TD

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Knife Edge Water Supply Another Gormley Disaster

Issued : Friday 15 January, 2010

News that the serious disruption to water supplies across Dublin’s Northside may last for up to two more weeks is an appalling prospect for local householders.

Residents in my constituency including in Clonshaugh, Coolock, Bonnybrook, Raheny, Howth and Sutton and across the northside in Clontarf, Killester, Artane, Ballymun, Santry and Finglas have been left without water in some cases for over a week. I have had many distressed calls in particular from senior citizens and citizens with a disability or a serious medical condition who are desperate to find out when their water supply will be reconnected.

Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council staff have worked outstandingly over the past week to try and get emergency water tankers into local communities. However, many householders are very frustrated that there seems to be little information available when water is reconnected on a temporary basis. Residents believe that information should have been made available in national and local newspapers and on the radio in this regard. There also seems to be no timeframe for when the supply will be fully reconnected for all homes in the region.

This latest crisis clearly highlights that the water infrastructure in the Greater Dublin Region is in a shocking state of disrepair. There has been a total lack of investment in our water system. I understand that in recent weeks the demand for water in the seven counties in the Greater Dublin Area (with a population of more than 1.4 million) has been 570 million litres a day. However the four reservoirs serving the region produce on average just 540/550 million litres per day. The recent Big Freeze put serious pressure on the water system with increased demand for water and freezing pipes.

The problems have been compounded by the astonishingly high level of leakage in the pipe system particularly in Dublin City and Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown areas (in some cases a 47% leakage according to Environment Minister John Gormley). Under National Development Plans, city and county engineers have repeatedly called for major investment in reservoirs and watermains (70% of which are very old).

However, out of the 2,700 kilometres of watermains in the region, upgrade funding has been approved for just 60 kilometres of watermains. Astonishingly the €118 million programme for watermain refurbishment has stalled indefinitely and is still awaiting approval on Minister Gormley’s desk. The region clearly needs much greater water treatment capacity and a number of new holding reservoirs.

Other European cities such as Paris have a huge reserve of water with at least a 10% spare capacity for emergency situations. It is astonishing that in a country with such a wet climate we could have a situation where tens of thousands of families have no access to basic drinking water supplies for days or weeks on end.

The water supply in Dublin will remain on a knife-edge for the foreseeable future. Environment Minister John Gormley must now urgently propose an emergency programme to audit and overhaul the water infrastructure for the whole country including the Dublin region.