IW apologies for Kingscourt outage issue

 

Irish Water has apologised to locals affected by a water outage in Kingscourt which left some residents in two local estates without access for several days.

The incident on the Thorndale estates -Close and Park- in December 2019 was caused when a pump in the main well supplying water to Kingscourt failed.

“Irish Water had to rely on a second well which can’t produce the same volume of water.

“This coincided with an unplanned leak repair which necessitated the shut off of the plant. The result was that the reservoir emptied which was again an unforeseen event,” a spokesperson for the semi-State utility provider informed The Anglo-Celt.

Irish Water's response follows criticism levelled at the organisation at a recent meeting of Cavan County Council, where area representative, Fianna Fail's Clifford Kelly, fumed that locals were given no notice of the outage.

““What sort of carry on is that? Are people not entitled to know if their water is going to be cut off?” he queried.

He said too that despite a brand new state-of-the-art €3 million water treatment plant for the town he still received complaints that water from the taps in the east Cavan town at times looked as if a person had “gone and filled mugs of water from the bog”.

 

Apology

Responding, Irish Water said it is committed to providing a “safe and reliable supply” of drinking water to everyone.

They stated of the Kingscourt incident that most of the town had water all the times, explaining too that Thorndale is on “high ground and therefore may have experienced reduced pressure and possibly some outages until the reservoir refilled. The pump in the main well has now been replaced and there hasn’t been an issue since then.

“Irish Water would like to apologise to those customers who experienced a problem with their water supply at the time,” said Irish Water, before adding that customers who experience issues with their water supply can contact the customer care helpline on 1850 278 278.

 

Investigation

The latest complaint follows separate calls for an independent investigation to be established around the reasons behind and eventual response by Irish Water to the mass water outage in Bailieborough in the run up to Christmas.

After several months of complaints about discoloured water from the processing plant at Skeagh Lough, following consultation with the HSE, almost 8,000 Irish Water (IW) customers served by the Bailieborough Public Water Supply were placed under a 'Do Not Consume' ban.

Also impacted were areas connected to the supply- Killinkere, Virginia, Crossbane and Mullagh.

Water customers were told it was especially important that the mains drinking water was not given to bottle fed infants or other potentially vulnerable persons, and a an alternative tanker supply was provided in towns and villages disrupted.

The ban, first published on December 13, 2019, remained in place for until two days before Christmas

In Kingscourt again, concerns over the presence of 'lime' in the water, and the detrimental impact it is having on household appliances has also been raised.