Councillors warn of squandered water bill money

The average €240 a year water bills for each home will be wastefully squandered, according to councillors on one council.

Sligo County Council is ready to spend €600,000 on a face-lift on Sligo town’s O’Connell St.

It invited Irish Water on board at the same time so it could carry out underground pipe replacement work.

But Irish Water declined and said it would work under the street at a later date. That means it will have to dig up the new paving and kerbing when it gets around to replacing the water pipes.

A council source said: “That’s an absolutely idiotic waste of money. Irish Water could go under the street when the council is giving it a facelift. Instead, they say they will do their work later. That means they will incur extra costs of reinstating paving and surfacing previously done by the council.”

Independent councillor Declan Bree said yesterday: “They will be squandering money. If they co-operated with the local council it would mean a saving in costs. It seems to be a typical Irish solution to an Irish problem.”

Sinn Féin councillor Sean McManus described the situation as “an utter and total disgrace”.

Tom Kilfeather, director of services at Sligo Council, said Irish Water refused to have water mains included in a tender to improve the street. He added: “It’s probably that their capital programme for 2014/2015 does not give the Sligo scheme priority.”

The council scheme to improve the street starts at the end of August and will take around seven months. The council is now amending tender documents to exclude the water element.

It will feature enhancement works only which will include a new road surface, widening and realignment of footpaths, new paving, and kerbing.

Locals expect Irish Water will start its works in about two years, more than a year after the council has completed its refurbishing work.

There was no response from Irish Water yesterday, five hours after they were asked for a comment.