Piping Shannon water to Dublin: Fixing leaks won’t sate capital thirst

Earlier this month, Irish Water conceded that 761m litres of drinking-quality water are lost each day, because our supply infrastructure has been neglected for decades, by many governments.

Yesterday, that agency announced that it was to press ahead with plans, despite hundreds of objections and probably many more to come, to extract water from the Shannon and pipe it to Dublin, in a €1.3bn project intended to supply 40% of Ireland’s population by 2025.