Capital’s €500kbill for ‘big freeze’

THE ‘big freeze’ last winter cost Dublin City Council €500,000 in overtime, water tankers and repairs, it has emerged.

The local authority revealed that it had to fix approximately 300 broken mains in January alone, a huge increase on the typical monthly figure of around 30.

Such was the impact of the freezing temperatures on the water infrastructure, Brian Smyth, Dublin City Council’s chief sanitary services engineer, said the local authority was still catching up with repairs on water mains.