Green Party councillor, Deirdre de Burca, has recently claimed that a serious water crisis is developing in North County Wicklow. Cllr de Burca made her comments following the recent disruption to water supplies that occurred in both Enniskerry village and Rocky Valley, Kilmacanogue.

According to de Burca, she has been contacted by many angry Enniskerry constituents over the past month about the ongoing disruption to their water supply.

“I am informed by Enniskerry residents that their water supply has been turned off every night for the past month from about 10.30pm to approximately 6.45 am the following morning” she says. “The residents were given no advance warning or no explanation from the County Council about this water supply problem. More recently, the water supply is being cut off about 8.30 pm every evening. When constituents have rung the council to complain, some of them have been told that they should consider themselves lucky to have any water supply at all”.

The Green Party councillor has also received recent complaints about the lack of a water supply in Rocky Valley, Kilmacanogue. “Once again residents received no advance warning of the disruption to their water supply” says de Burca. “When I contacted the council to find out what was causing the problem, I was told that the source of the problem was unknown” she says. “Eventually I was told that there were ongoing water pressure problems with the water supply to Rocky Valley and that these problems are linked to the amount of water that Dublin Councils are drawing from the Roundwood Resevoir. Residents are now heading into a Bank Holiday weekend with the prospect of having no running water in their homes”.

The Green Party councillor states that it is not acceptable that people are expected to tolerate ongoing and unexpected interruptions to their water supply. “One of the basic functions of a local authority is to provide and protect clean, safe, reliable water supplies for the populations of their areas” she says. “If there are regular interruptions of the water supply, then obviously the council is failing to fulfil this role”.

De Burca says that her biggest concern is that although certain areas in the north of the county are experiencing water shortages, the county council is continuing to zone land for new development in these areas, and to grant planning permissions for large new developments. “If the water supplies are bad in these areas at present, we can only imagine what will happen when new developments come on-stream” says de Burca. “The council should not be granting planning permission for large new developments in these areas if it is clear that the water supply will not be able to cater for the extra demand.”

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Press Release by Deirdre