Army mobilised, but it will be Friday before water crisis is over...
A FLEET of Defence Forces water tankers arrived in Drogheda last night after Irish Water sought their help in easing the burst mains pipe crisis.
However, the agency warned that it could be the weekend before normal water supplies are resumed.
The arrival of the Army vehicles comes in addition to the 35 tankers that agency boss Jerry Grant said were already ferrying water to the 50,000-plus people affected by the leak in the Co. Louth town and surrounding areas.
With the Defence Forces’ six tankers and an extra eight tankers drafted in by Irish Water by yesterday afternoon, this brings to 49 the total number deployed to the stricken area. Newly manufactured segments to replace the damaged 43-year-old asbestos trunk main at the centre of the crisis were due to be delivered from Northern Ireland last night. They are then due to be fitted throughout today.
But although Irish Water said water supplies would be back up and running by tomorrow, it could now be the weekend before full water services are restored.
Irish Water MD Jerry Grant told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland: ‘We have had a very major engineering crisis. The unfortunate thing is that the engineering solution hasn’t been possible in the normal timeframe; therefore it is taking several days. We would hope to have supplies gradually restored during Thursday.
‘But it will probably take this into Friday and probably even the weekend to get all supplies back to normal. That is the best we can do based on all the statistics.’ Last night, the Defence Forces said that its first port of call would be Gormanston – and once filled, the fleet would then move on to ‘designated locations’ in Drogheda. Along with the tankers will be 21 personnel from the 27th Infantry Battalion.
Irish Water also said there were now 13 additional temporary water stations around Drogheda – at places including the Gary Kelly Cancer Support Centre and Wheaton Hall Retail Park.
Solidarity TDs yesterday called for an increase in investment for maintaining and repairing the water infrastructure. And speaking on RTÉ yesterday, Junior Housing Minister Damien English said: ‘We need to spend €13, €15billion on water infrastructure... over the next seven or eight years.’
‘That’s the best we can do’