Investment needed to solve problems in a Tipperary town with ‘the worst water supply in the country’

Clonmel was probably “the worst place in Ireland” for outages to its water supply, local politician Siobhán Ambrose has stated.

She made her remarks at a meeting of Clonmel Borough District, when she called on Uisce Éireann (formerly Irish Water) to fund an independent report on both the possible short and long term options to resolve the ongoing water disruption issues in Clonmel town and also in Templetney, the Clonmel Rural Supply Scheme.

This report could even be compiled by somebody from another country to investigate what options were available.
Draining the River Suir was the long term option but a short term solution was also needed.

The disruption to the supply was costing businesses, households and the farming community, and businesses sometimes were forced to close. These costs couldn’t be sustained into the future, said Cllr Ambrose.

Cllr Pat English said he couldn’t understand why Uisce Éireann wouldn’t upgrade the Glenary and Poulavanogue plants that had supplied the town with water for so many years.

The project to extract water from the Suir seemed to be off the table and instead Uisce Éireann were concentrating on taking water from the Monroe supply. However, that supply broke down on a regular basis because of its high lime content.

They were talking about expanding the town but prospective industries would inquire about whether Clonmel had a proper water supply.

The outages that happened regularly were closing shops, pubs and other businesses. The situation had cost the Talbot Hotel €24,000 during August and that was serious money.

Cllr English said you could sense the frustration among people at last month’s meeting of the Clonmel Business Network. Seven officials from Uisce Éireann attended that meeting but the only promise they could give was to get better information out to people.

There were three to four outages every week and pressure had to be put on Uisce Éireann.

Cllr Michael Murphy said that there had been fifty outages since April 1 and Clonmel’s water crisis needed “investment, investment and investment”.

They needed investment in both the Glenary and Poulavanogue plants and in a three-day storage facility for the town, because when the supply was affected it took three days to have it restored.

They also needed plans for the Monroe supply to be accelerated, while the plans to decommission the Poulavanogue plant should be revisited.

Cllr Murphy said that if they wanted an independent report then Eugene Dargan, who had worked in Tipperary County Council’s water services section, would do it for free.

Cllr John FitzGerald said that €5 billion had been set aside nationally for public water and Clonmel should be prioritised.
From the day of the meeting nobody in the county council would be in a position to advise the councillors any more about what was happening.

Cllr FitzGerald admitted he was scared about the phone calls he would receive from people, asking him about outages and day-to-day issues, but he couldn’t go to the council staff for answers any more.

They needed better communication from Uisce Éireann, he said.

District Mayor Richie Molloy said there had been no investment for years and years and all they could do was to keep the pressure on Uisce Éireann.

He said the Government would have to make the money available for the necessary work to be carried out, but in the short term he admitted that there didn’t seem to be “any real answers”.