Cork TD calls for better planning by Irish Water on work projects

A CORK TD has called for Irish Water to better plan for works affecting residential areas, businesses and schools.

Sinn Féin TD for Cork North Central, Thomas Gould, made the call for better planning after a number of northside areas were left without water as a result of recent works carried out by the utility company.

“Recently, in Farranree and Blackpool, we have seen water works carried out by Irish Water where mistakes made in the planning stages resulted in large numbers of houses being left without water with no notice and with the closure of Gaeilscoil Pheig Sayers,” Deputy Gould said.

“I have emailed Irish Water about these incidents and was told that lessons were learned.

“This is clearly not true because after the forced closure of Gaeilscoil Pheig Sayers, we then saw works in Farranree that were expected to affect 40 homes end up affecting a large number more,” he said.

The Sinn Féin TD said that Irish Water needed to put “proper plans” into place before undertaking works, as, he claimed, in recent incidences the company had failed to adequately prepare and had negatively impacted upon people’s lives.

“It is vital that localised knowledge is used in these situations because people cannot be left without water unexpectedly and schools cannot close.”

Deputy Gould’s Sinn Féin colleague, Cork city councillor Kenneth Collins, said there had been a number of occurrences in recent months when Irish Water had planned water outages a week after midterm break, meaning that schools were forced to close because of a lack of water, something he suggested highlighted a lack of forward planning on the part of the water utility.

Councillor Collins said Irish Water’s notification policy left a lot to be desired, and he said the company needed to be more proactive in informing the public of planned outages and road closures.

“Clear notification has to be got out there, in social media, in the print media, and on local radio. Irish Water has a duty to properly inform people well in advance of disruptions, and that just isn’t happening at the moment,” Cllr Collins said.

Irish Water was contacted for comment.