North Cork village faces housing growth with ‘nightmare’ water supply dating back 50 years

Residents warn new housing will worsen chronic water outages as Uisce Éireann says funding is unavailable for pipe replacement

'Everybody acknowledges that the pipes are also too small (in diameter) to carry the water needed in this day and age to supply the needs of houses and businesses in the area.'

A drought-stricken village in North Cork, in line for 60 new houses, is already struggling with a "nightmare" creaking water supply that hasn’t been upgraded in more than 50 years.

In the past year, the supply situation has deteriorated in Ballyhooly with repeated breaks in its main pipes.

Such disruptions have caused a lot of hardship for locals, they say.

State water utility Uisce Éireann, formerly known as Irish Water, says that funding is not available at present to replace the old network. 

Locals are getting increasingly frustrated with the utility constantly patching up broken pipes, with outages sometimes going on for a couple of days at a time.

Ballyhooly community council chairman John Howard said new homes are welcome in the middle of a housing crisis, but he questioned how a further 60 can be given planning permission when the antiquated water supply system is not holding up in current circumstances.

The parish now has a population of just over 1,200 people, which is a lot more than when the supply system was built.

A number of new estates have been built in the village in the past 15 years.

Mr Howard claimed that additional housing drawing on the current supply is “100% going to make matters worse".

“There doesn’t seem to be any joined-up thinking on this. It’s decompartmentalised. People (in different agencies) aren’t talking to each other about the issue,” he claimed.

Mr Howard said at times there were breaks in the mains pipes “nearly every second week” and things got so bad at one stage that the local shop had to close temporarily.

Nearly all farmers have dug their own wells to supply their thirsty cattle, as they can’t rely on the public supply, he also claimed.

“Everybody acknowledges that the pipes are also too small (in diameter) to carry the water needed in this day and age to supply the needs of houses and businesses in the area. 

Maybe 50 years ago, they were adequate for the number of properties in the village, but certainly not today

The community council has lobbied local TDs to put pressure on Uisce Éireann to replace all the old pipes with larger ones, but as yet to no avail.

“Today, there is also more demand for water and not just because of the increased number of houses. There were no dishwashers and electric showers when the system was built. Uisce Éireann is telling us that if they turn up the pressure, there’s a risk more pipes will blow,” Mr Howard said.

School closures

Trevor Gumbridge, principal of the local national school, said the water has been off on numerous occasions, which is a serious inconvenience when there are more than 160 pupils in its care, some of whom are special needs students.

“It’s a nightmare,” he said.

He and his staff have managed to keep the school open, nevertheless, primarily because if they closed it, there would be serious implications for parents and guardians picking up children at short notice.

However, with new buildings and no sign of a replacement of the archaic watermains, he said “the situation going forward is untenable".

School closures will be inevitable, and I’d be very worried about the future. We are all constantly worried about the water supply, and it is putting pressure on everybody

Independent councillor William O’Leary, who chairs the municipal district council which controls Ballyhooly, said the people living there have been enduring a poor water supply for more than 10 years.

He said that it initially began with low-pressure issues, but has escalated in the past three to four years into long, frequent outages that have completely upended daily life in the village.

“The problem is that there is no fix in sight in Ballyhooly and people have been left without basic information, without certainty, and without hope,” he said.

Mr O’Leary said the county council has repeatedly highlighted the situation with Uisce Éireann in the last couple of years, asking it to urgently address the situation.

“In that time, the approach from the utility has been the same: patch, repair, tape over the leaks, and move on. The only genuine solution is a capital project to replace the pipe from the reservoir at Castletownroche to Ballyhooly. 

"Everyone knows this. Uisce Éireann knows this. The local community knows this. Yet they are still applying sticking plasters to a system that is collapsing,” Mr O’Leary said.

Mental health

He claimed the ongoing issue is also affecting people’s mental health.

“I have spoken to countless people in person and over the phone who are genuinely at breaking point. One person has already sold their home because they simply could not keep going with the constant outages. People with medical needs are left without certainty. The anxiety and distress in the community is real, and it is growing,” Mr O’Leary added.

“That is a health and safety issue in today’s Ireland. We also have to ask serious questions about fire safety. Hydrants in the village barely trickle water due to the lack of pressure. This is not a theoretical concern; it is a public-safety failure.” 

He said despite all of this, Uisce Éireann has not come to the table with a long-term plan, while also issuing a thinly-veiled attack on Cork East's four TDs.

“At the local authority level, we have tried repeatedly to engage constructively, but the only response has been the same short-term repair cycle. There seems to have been no political pressure from those elected nationally to drive a capital solution, and while the issue has been raised in recent months, that is 10 years too late. No one deserves a pat on the back for raising a crisis after a decade of inaction,” he added.

Mr O’Leary described local frustration at being at a level he has rarely seen.

“We have seen vast sums spent on bike sheds and a security hut in Leinster House. Yet a community of people in North Cork is told that a capital spend of €1m to €3m to guarantee safe, reliable drinking water is somehow beyond reach,” Mr O’Leary said.

While Uisce Éireann has in recent times reduced the number of leaks, Mr O'Leary claimed winter frosts will cause more breaks.

“More outages will follow. More families will suffer. And once again, the village will be left hoping that someone, somewhere, will finally recognise that this is not a temporary inconvenience. It is a complete failure of public infrastructure and public responsibility,” Mr O’Leary said.

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He concluded by saying that in modern Ireland, it should not be too much to ask that a village can turn on a tap and know water will come out.

“Ballyhooly deserves much better than the system it has been left with. The people deserve answers, investment, and certainty not another decade of excuses,” Mr O’Leary said.

Last year, the utility said it “acknowledges and regrets any impact to the local community and assures the public that it is continuing to prioritise investigatory and remedial works in the area.

“As part of this, investigatory and optimisation works have been ongoing in recent weeks with find and fix and operational teams on the ground. Uisce Eireann crews are actively locating and repairing leaks in Ballyhooly,” it said in May.

When asked about Ballyhooly's ongoing issues, a spokesperson for Uisce Éireann said: “Delivery of any capital projects is subject to funding, internal governance processes, procurement, planning permissions, legal and environmental regulations. It can take a number of years to bring any capital project through all of these stages.”