Residents left high and dry over lack of information from local authorities

PROBLEMS making contact with the local council are the biggest concern for residents who have had restricted water supply for most of the week in Cork city.

Paddy Fogarty has been making six trips a day to collect water from a council standpipe near Collins Barracks on the city’s northside for his own home and neighbours in The Glen.

“We’re without water since St Stephen’s Day but the most difficult thing is nobody knows when its going off or coming back. On Monday, we were all waiting for news instead of going away to buy water, nobody came up with the information and people are very frustrated,” he said.

“We couldn’t get through to the council — that phone line is never answered. This will happen again but if they let us know how long or when we’re going to be without water, people will handle it fine,” he said.

With City Hall remaining closed until today, a contact number was given out on the council website and through the media for the public to report water problems. More than a dozen calls by the Irish Examiner to the phone number given to the public were unanswered until just before 5pm yesterday.

A council spokesperson said extra staff have been assigned to take calls and asked people trying to get through to be patient. He said the reason that between 8,000 and 10,000 homes have been on restricted supplies since Monday was to keep enough pressure in the system to ensure no homes are left completely without water.

Christine O’Mahony has been collecting water two or three times daily since St Stephen’s Day for the six people in her home in Mayfield.

“We can’t get information, we’ve heard nothing, absolutely nothing apart from the odd update on the radio,” she said, as her son Jordan helped her fill the car with more bottled water.

Timothy O’Connor from The Glen was three days without water, apart from a trickle in the taps yesterday morning.

“I had to go up to my daughter’s place for a shower, they had been without water before Christmas and they’ve had no heating since. You can’t get through on the [city council] phone line. People don’t know when it’s coming on again,” he said.

Gerry O’Beirne, Cork City Council’s director of environment services, said the biggest difficulty is locating damaged water pipes but most problems are on the city’s more elevated northside.

“As soon as leaks or bursts are found, we’re trying to repair them as quickly as possible. As they are fixed, the number of areas where water is cut off at night should be reducing,” he said.

The restrictions will be in place for a fourth night from about 7pm tonight until 10am tomorrow, but residents are being told they should have enough supply during the day to refill water storage tanks.

In Co Cork, supplies were described as critical in the west, with production at treble last month’s levels in Glengarriff and Castletownbere water stations. Services were cut off again last night in a range of areas and may continue over the coming nights for homes and businesses in areas served by reservoirs which are running very low, including Millstreet and Glanmire.

“The situation is improving but will remain critical for a number of days yet, possibly weeks in some areas,” a Cork County Council statement said.

Water supplies are being provided for the public in a number of towns, including Bantry, Mallow and Fermoy.