WATER RESTRICTIONS are likely to continue into the new year for hundreds of thousands of householders on both sides of the Border as local authorities struggle to maintain supplies.
Restrictions remain in place in every county despite the thaw which set in on Sunday.
In the Republic, the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government said that local authorities were doing all they could to restore supplies and it appealed to householders to be patient.
The department’s principal adviser on water services, Gerry Galvin, said local authorities were dealing with numerous small leaks which were combining to create a big problem.
“I think local authorities have learned from the freeze last January and have taken corrective action,” he said.
Mr Galvin said the extreme ranges of temperatures experienced recently created a heave in the ground which had caused so many pipes to break across the country.
He said continued water restrictions were “inevitable” given that all city and county water supplies were on full production. He also urged keyholders to check on premises which were closed for the Christmas break to see if there were any leaks.
Local authorities across the country are continuing to provide water from standpipes or tankers.
Most local authorities in the Republic are expecting it will be next week before water services are back to normal. Fingal County Council described the situation in the city’s reservoirs as “critical”, while Dublin City Council extended the areas which have night-time restrictions.
However, the city council is expected to announce today that it will be easing restrictions tomorrow night to allow for New Year’s Eve celebrations. Restaurant owners had been stressing the need for water supplies on a particularly busy night. Other local authorities, including Cork city and county councils and Kerry, have signalled that they are willing to follow suit.
Cork County Council said it hoped to have 90 per cent of services fixed by the weekend but the remainder would have to wait until next week. The council warned it would be seven to 10 days before supplies return to normal.
Both of the main Opposition parties said they would make major changes to how water is supplied in the future. Fine Gael’s spokesman on natural resources Simon Coveney said the party would invest €4.5 billion over four years from the National Pension Reserve Fund in a new water system. The party also envisaged that the water supply would be replaced by a single semi-State water company similar to how the ESB managed the State’s entire electricity supply until recently.
Labour’s spokeswoman on the environment Joanna Tuffy said investment in water infrastructure needed to be a priority.
In the North, the Stormont Executive meets today to co-ordinate an emergency response to the water crisis which has left nearly 40,000 households and business premises without supplies.
Some residents have been without clean water for 12 days. Hundreds of people have queued for supplies from tankers while leisure centres have opened to allow people to take showers.
As the crisis worsened yesterday there were calls from public representatives for NI Water chief executive Laurence MacKenzie to resign. Mr MacKenzie apologised to those who had their supplies cut off.