The community of Miltown Malbay is said to be up in arms over an ongoing water outage issue there.
There has been disruption to water supply for a second day – It’s the tenth time there has been an outage in the area in approximately nine months.
Irish Water has committed to 2 million euro in works to address problems associated with aging water infrastructure, with construction expected to get underway in the third quarter of this year.
The utility also says works will be completed this afternoon – issues have also been reported in nearby Spanish Point and in Liscannor today.
But local Councillor Christy Curtin has been telling Clare FM’s Fiona Cahill the works urgently need to be brought forward, particularly in light of the upcoming tourist season:
Statement from Irish Water:
Repairs are being carried out to a burst water main which is causing supply disruption to Miltown Malbay and some surrounding areas. Irish Water would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused as a result of this incident.
As part of its commitment to addressing issues with aging water infrastructure in the county, Irish Water has approved funding of €2 million for the replacement of 12.6km of old watermains in the Miltown Malbay area of West Clare.
This will deliver a more reliable and safer drinking water supply to the town and lead to a significant reduction in supply outages such as this one.
This work is necessary due to the poor state of the water mains in the area, which were laid around 1970.
The project consists of replacing 6.6km of ageing water mains from Mullagh to Milltown Mallbay and 6km of mains from Old Doolough to Mullagh.
The priority section is the replacement of 4.3km of mains from Mullagh to Annagh Bridge. It is anticipated that a contractor will be appointed and works will get underway in the third quarter of 2017.
Please see https://www.water.ie/water-supply/supply-and-service-update/ for more details.
