North Cork village demands action on long-running chronic water shortages

One councillor read from a letter from Phil Hogan (then Minister for the Environment) signed on March 13. 2014 in which he said priority emergency funding was approved the previous year to address these issues. However, nothing has happened since. File photo

Drought-stricken villagers have been hit yet again with serious water outages - with one councillor pointing out that there were promises made as far back as 2014 to address their woes by then-Environment Minister Phil Hogan.

Issues with constant water mains breakages in the North Cork village of Kildorrery have been well documented in recent years. While some pipes have been repaired, others are constantly breaking, causing serious problems for householders, businesses and farmers.

A meeting of the council's Northern Division heard the mains pipe from the village to Ballyvisteen (on the Limerick road) has suffered from numerous breaks in recent weeks, sometimes twice a day.

Fianna Fáil councillor Frank O'Flynn told officials the supply issues in the areas have “now gone beyond a joke” and detailed past promises made to rectify them and to replace a leaking water reservoir supplying the general area.

“It's a major issue for the business people, householders and farmers in the area yet again. I have a letter from Phil Hogan (then Minister for the Environment) signed on March 13. 2014 in which he said priority emergency funding was approved the previous year to address these issues, but nothing has happened since,” Mr O'Flynn said.

He said many people didn't believe the promise at the time and were so concerned that any remedial measures would take a long time, that they'd sunk their own wells in the meantime.

Mr O'Flynn said they were the lucky ones as those who couldn't afford to do so are suffering even more now than they ever did.

Hairdressers and bars are still bringing in “churns” of water to keep going, and families are having to travel several miles to relatives' houses to get showers and drinking water.

Mr O'Flynn said the water outages are compounded by the fact that the archaic water reservoir tower, back-up supply for the area "is constantly leaking." It was also supposed to be replaced under the 'Hogan plan'.

“The tower has only two hours of storage capacity. We've full planning permission for a new reservoir. We were told this would be built in 2016 and nothing happened,” he said. Mr O'Flynn added that water leaking from the tower is flowing into nearby properties and he's worried it could undermine them.

The Northern Division's chairman, Fianna Fáil councillor William O'Leary, said the people of Kildorrery have suffered enough and agreed it's time to ask Irish Water to expedite the problem once and for all.

It was agreed that councillors will seek a supporting letter from the county engineer, Kevin Morey, to highlight the seriousness of the problem. James Fogarty, the council's assistant chief executive, agreed with them that the situation demanded a speedy IW response.