Almost 40% of water in Ireland lost every day despite €500m investment

In Germany and Netherlands, the figures are as low as 6% or 7%

A general view of water dripping out of a kitchen tap.

Around 38% of Irish water is lost through leakages every day, despite a half a billion spend since 2018.

Irish Water has now said it is going to spend a further €250m a year to get the lost water down to 25% by 2030.

In Germany and Netherlands, those figures are as low as 6% or 7%.

The Irish Water response to Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín says it has embarked a campaign to fix old and damaged pipes across the country, bringing the overall level of loss from 38% to 25%. 

That is a saving of 166 million litres of water daily — enough water to fill 66 Olympic-size swimming pools each day. 

Peadar Tóibín said that conservation requests in times of good weather are "ridiculous". Picture: Collins

Irish Water has said that 5.5 million litres of that saving has come in Cork City where "dated, fragile infrastructure and burst prone water mains" were leading to a large amount of lost water. A programme in 2020 saw 4.2km of new water mains installed from Tivoli to the city centre.

The utility said it is "making progress" in dealing with a complicated problem.

"Since 2018, Irish Water has invested over €500m to upgrade the underground water network across the country through the delivery of the Leakage Reduction Programme. We are investing a further €250m every year up to the end of 2030 — fixing leaks and replacing pipes to provide a more reliable water supply. 

"In our recent Irish Water digital campaign, we communicated that fixing leaks can be complicated but we are making progress. In 2018 the rate of leakage nationally was 46%, by the end of 2021 it was 38%. We are on track to achieve a national leakage rate of 25% by the end of 2030."

However, Mr Tóibín said the outlay of €2.7bn should see less water lost in leakages.

"Despite investing half a billion euro into the Leakage Reduction Programme, Irish Water is losing nearly 40% of our water supply to leakage. They've written to me to say that they will be spending a quarter of a billion euro annually until 2030, by which point they hope to have reduced our rate of leakage to 25% — this isn't a success.

"They want to spend €2.7 billion and yet admit that a quarter of water will still be lost to leaks despite the investment.

The Government must initiate a Value for Money study on the work of Irish Water to see if we're getting bang for our bucks. These figures are enormously expensive. 

Mr Tóibín said that conservation requests in times of good weather are "ridiculous".

"We all remember the controversy when Irish Water was established. We live on an island that gets its fair share of rain, but yet when it gets fine for more than a week we're all subjected to hose pipe bans, messages instructing us to stop watering flowers, and to take shorter showers. It is absolutely ridiculous.

"Towns such as Trim and Enfield in my own constituency are facing constant disruption when it comes to

water

supply, indeed in recent years my constituency saw

water

having to be drawn in tankers to some towns due to the shortage. The taxpayer is footing these enormous bills, the least they can expect is for

water

to come out of their taps when they turn them on."

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