Section of outdated piping serving Clare’s largest estate to be replaced
- 1km of pipe to be replaced
- Works will be carried out on phased basis
Fianna Fáil TD for Clare Cathal Crowe has welcomed confirmation from Irish Water that 1km of pipe mains will be replaced this year from Athlunkard Bridge, serving the Parteen/Westbury area.
The works are now to advance to design and will be carried out on a phased basis as part of the utility’s 2021 mains rehab programme.
“This stretch of mains is continuously bursting, causing hundreds of homes at each occasion to be left without water, so this is a most welcome announcement” said Deputy Crowe.
“In the days that follow an outage, they continue to experience low water pressure and some residents have even complained to me that their dishwasher and washing machine motors have burned out because of the poor water supply.
“In 2019, households in this locality endured 15 different water outages in the calendar year and for what is a largely urbanised environment, it frustrated people hugely that they had to bring buckets and canisters to a number of local points to fill these from a Clare County Council water tankard for cooking and basic hygiene needs.
“This was archaic, and it harked back to people having to draw water from a well, despite the area being so developed.
“That in itself is an indictment of how bad the water system is in the area.
“This pipe network, which receives its feed from a reservoir in Castletroy in Limerick, is a mish mash of cast iron pipes, asbestos pipes and modern plastic pipes.
“As is standard practice when a leak is detected and fixed, Irish Water turn on valves to allow the network of pipes to refill.
“Very often, this re-pressurising process results in further leaks with other sections of the network rupturing and this problem would cease if all of the pipe network was replaced with plastic sections, where repressuring problems don’t generally arise as they can cater for the increased levels of pressure.
“I’m relieved that this design work is underway and I am going to continue to engage with Irish Water to ensure that this project is prioritised in terms of on-site works.”
-ENDS-
