People of Drogheda angry and frustrated over cack-handed response to water crisis- Nash
Louth Labour Senator Ged Nash has said that the people of Drogheda are angry and frustrated over the ‘cack-handed response’ on the ground to the major water outage in the region.
Senator Nash explained:
“Early last weekend, there was a general level of understanding that major engineering works, the likes of which are being carried out at Staleen, takes time to complete.
“However, frustration is growing by the hour as Irish Water’s own deadlines continue to be missed.
“The patience of the people of Drogheda has been stretched to the limit because of poor and unclear information, missed deadlines and entirely inadequate contingency plans, which have seen a mere six water stations available to a town with 43,000 households.
“Areas like Clogherhead, Termonfeckin and Baltray appear to have been completely ignored and are not at this point served by water stations.
“On Saturday, requests were made for the provision of at least ten water stations for the town and as of Monday morning, only six are in place.
“There has been nothing like the mobilisation of crews to provide water stations and information that people should be entitled to expect.
“There has been no direct door-to-door communication from Irish Water or visible attempts to, for example, engage directly with older citizens living on their own and to provide for their needs.
“What makes the poor contingency plans even more frustrating is that these kinds of crises, given the antiquated water pipe network, are almost inevitable in the absence of a comprehensive programme and the resources to replace outdated pipes on the network.
“I was not reassured by the words of the Irish Water spokesperson on Morning Ireland today when he said it would take a generation to comprehensively fix this massive problem, which was identified in 2011.
“More concerning still is the lack of confidence on the part of Irish Water that they will be provided with the money from Government to do so as our water system competes with health, education and housing for funds.
“Given the crisis in the Drogheda region, funds should now be diverted from other projects to undertake a belt and braces job on the area’s water infrastructure.”