Uisce Éireann to invest €17m on water mains and new pump stations in Co Wexford

By Simon Bourke, Wexford People

Almost €12m has been ringfenced to upgrade water facilities in Wexford town amid ongoing and repeated outages in the Mulgannon area and its surrounds. Responding to a query from Councillor Robbie Staples, a representative from Uisce Éireann has confirmed that, of the €17m allocated to Co Wexford, €11.9m will be spent in its capital town.

These upgrades will be installed to cater for a projected 2,500 new homes in the Wexford town area and will see new mains facilities delivered as well as a new water pump station.

At the January meeting of the Wexford Borough District both Cllr Staples and Cllr Tom Forde requested an update from a meeting recently held between Uisce Éireann (UE) and council officials.

“Our technician attended and they discussed putting a new mains system from the top of Mulgannon to as far as the golf club,” replied senior engineer Lar Lett. “It would go along the fairways through the Distillery Road area and past the Bishopswater roundabout to Richmond.

"UE is going to share its capital investment plan for the district with us, the first call will be applying for licenses to carry out site investigation works.”

Last September, hundreds of residents were unable to shower, run washing machines or even flush the toilet as they found that the taps were dry three times in the space of a week. The ongoing issues led to huge anger in the area.

"This is getting ridiculous,” one resident said. “We have kids that need to be got ready for school etc. There’s not even a dribble in the taps.

"Residents of Whiterock need to come together and do something now. Enough is enough.”

"It’s like living in a third world country,” another angry resident said. “We can’t even flush the toilet.”

Bumble Bee’s creche in Whitebrook was forced to close its doors as a result of the water outage, leaving over 40 families scrambling for alternative childcare.

"Our service has been forced to close for the second time this year, due to no water supply leaving families and staff in an impossible position,” owner Helen Scallan said.

"Despite repeated contact, we have not received a clear explanation from Irish Water as to why these outages are happening and how they are being resolved.