Customers advised to run taps after pipe repair in Dublin completed
Uisce Éireann, formerly Irish Water, said it is working with Dublin City Council in order to restore the supply to the public as soon as possible.
Repairs to a major water main which cut off supplies to large parts of Dublin on Thursday have now been completed.
Around 40,000 homes and businesses had either no supply or low pressure due to the burst high-pressure water main pipe.
Repairs were complex due to the location of the pipe and the presence of other underground services.
Crews worked through the night to progress repairs which were completed at around 2am on Friday.
Uisce Éireann said it may take several hours for normal water supply to return to all customers due to the size of Dublin’s network, especially for those on higher ground or at the end of the network.
It also noted that following this type of work, issues such as cloudy water, air bubbles, discolouration or internal airlocks may arise occasionally. Uisce Éireann is advising customers to run their taps to flush out any discolouration in water following the repairs.
Operations manager Margaret Attridge said issue had not been a burst pipe, as had earlier been reported. It was the fitting on top of the pipe, laid 40 years ago, that had sheered off.
Incidents such as this could happen once a year. It will take some time for the entire network to return to normal so some customers could experience discolouration of the water and low pressure today, Ms Attridge said.
The repairs were said to be "complex due to the location of the dig and the presence of other underground services".
There is no boil notice in place and the water is drinkable, Ms Attridge said, although it would not be pleasant. Her advice was “run your tap. It's not that it's not safe to drink, but it's not very pleasant to drink. So you run your tap and that should clear it. It should be very localised.”
The areas impacted by the burst pipe are:
- Dolphins Barn
- Harolds Cross
- Kilmainham
- Fleet Street
- Brunswich Street
- The Liberties
- Gardener Street
- Dorset Street
- Drumcondra
- Whitehall
- Artane
- Coolock
- Beaumont
- Fairview
- Raheny
- Clontarf
- Killester
- Home Farm
Typically it takes two to three hours following restoration time for water to refill the networks and for normal supply to be fully restored.
Joe O’Reilly of Uisce Éireann said: “The repairs are being conducted as quickly and as efficiently as possible to minimise disruption to homes and businesses and restore water for all customers."
"We understand the inconvenience an unplanned outage can have and we appreciate your patience as we work to return normal water supply as quickly as possible."
