Anger over water supply cuts in Clonmel

There was an angry reaction to recent disruptions to the water supply in Clonmel when members of Clonmel Borough District Council met for their monthly meeting.

Cllr. Pat English said there had been serious outages of water in the town in recent weeks, and some areas had been left without water for a number of days.

He said the problem had been caused by sand, grit and leaves blocking the reservoirs, and this had happened on a few occasions in recent years. 

He asked if a caretaker was employed at the reservoirs.

Council area engineer Eoin Powell said that a new treatment plant would eventually be built in the Marlfield area to extract water from the river Suir.

The supply when treated would provide soft water, and not the hard water that had caused problems on the northern side of Clonmel in recent years.

However Cllr. English said that it would take years to build that new treatment plant in Marlfield.

He said the water supplied from the Poulnagunogue and Glenary sources was pristine and should be maintained.

Cllr. English claimed that both treatment plants were being ignored at present.

Cllr. Catherine Carey said that her area in the Mountain Road had no water for eight days from November 8, and the response when Irish Water were contacted wasn’t satisfactory.

When she rang the Tipperary County Council emergency number she spoke to someone in Cork and got no satisfaction either.

She said you couldn’t beat the staff of the former Clonmel Corporation when it came to clearing leaves from the reservoirs.

Cllr. Michael Murphy said that disruptions to the supply were caused by periods of significant rainfall and stormy weather. 

Irish Water needed to get on top of this and make sure there was a quick response for clearing the reservoirs.

Cllr.Murphy said there was a lot of frustration among those affected. He also said the area engineer needed to bring back the message about a recent outage in Prior Park. The supply was supposed to be cut off from 1am-5am one morning but the area was left without water for 72 hours, and tankers had to be brought up there.

Cllr. Siobhan Ambrose said it really was “a disaster” if you had a house full of children or someone who wasn’t well and people couldn’t flush the toilet or have a shower after three days.

This created a very difficult situation for people.

Water tankers had been brought into some areas but people didn’t know that they were available.

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