The problems being experienced with water supply by a local community in South Tipp has been highlighted in Leinster House.
Residents in the Knocklofty area are regularly experiencing reduced water supply or a complete loss of service.
Senator Garret Ahearn lives in the nearby village of Grange and says Knocklofty is served by the Ardfinnan water supply.
The Fine Gael representative told the Seanad that this is regularly shut down overnight by Irish Water to conserve supply.
“Because of where Knocklofty is – its on top of a very steep hill – the supply comes back extremely slowly. It doesn’t come back until 3 or 4 o’clock for people at the top of the hill which essentially means they’re without water for the whole day. Its constantly happening to the point where some families have not got tanks put in themselves so they have water supply for 48 hours it case it goes out. Even those houses have had outages five or six times in the last year which means Irish Water have been out for well over 48 hours in that area.
Garret Ahearn has called on Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien to intervene pointing out that the interruptions to service are causing significant hardship.
“They have to drive five miles into Clonmel simply to go to the toilet. There’s people there who have medical issues that need support – they need water. It’s a basic need.
“It doesn’t cost a lot to fix the problem for the community of Knocklofty. They haven’t been as vocal as they could have been with all the challenges they’ve had to deal with but I would ask that something would be done by Irish Water to support the community of Knocklofty so that they can have the basic essential of water supply throughout the day.”
