Outages impacting Carrick on Suir (Linguan) Public Water Supply Scheme

03 August 2023

Information below is relevant until further updates are provided here or on our Supply and Service Updates section.

Uisce Éireann and Tipperary County Council are aware of a low pressure and water outages impacting some customers supplied by the Carrick on Suir (Linguan) Public Water Supply Scheme. This has been caused by an operational issue at the water treatment plant resulting in reduced quantities of water being produced. There is approximately 24 hours storage in the reservoir, however customers at higher elevations will begin to experience low pressure and/or loss of supply from Thursday afternoon, 3 August.

Approximately 3,869 customers supplied by the Carrick on Suir (Linguan) Public Water Supply may be impacted in the following areas including: north side of the River Suir, Friar Street Upper, Corpse Road, Rack Hill, South Quay and Bridge Street on the south side of the River Suir.

Remedial works have been delayed due to the industrial strike action arising from a dispute between the Unite Trade Union and 7 Local Authorities, which is taking place between Wednesday, 2 August, and Friday, 4 August inclusive. It is anticipated that works at the plant will not commence until Saturday, 5 August when the strike action has ceased. This means that normal supply will not commence returning to customers until Saturday, 5 August with all customer expected to have normal supply back by Sunday, 6 August.

To support impacted customers, Uisce Éireann has arranged the delivery of alternative water supplies with clean drinking water to the following location(s): Ash Park, Creg Lawn, St. John’s Terrace, Stand Lane and Carrigbeg Estate.

Customers are reminded to use their own containers when taking water from the tanker and to boil water before consumption as a precautionary measure as per HSE advice.

Vulnerable customers who have registered with Uisce Éireann receive direct communications from us for planned and unplanned outages lasting more than four hours.

Our priority remains the protection of public health and the environment through the delivery of safe, secure and sustainable water services where possible during this dispute, and we will do everything within our power to maintain safe water services.

Uisce Éireann’s Regional Operations Manager, Jim Fitzgerald said: “This dispute is not with Uisce Éireann and is outside our control. However, it will regrettably impact Uisce Éireann customers. We have stood up our incident management team and are working closely with management in the local authorities to ensure that contingency plans are in place to minimise and manage disruptions to water and wastewater services.

On the dispute Jim said: “We would urge Unite to use the recognised dispute resolution mechanisms to resolve this issue and to engage with the relevant representative bodies. While industrial action is a right, we again call on Unite to provide guarantees that strike committees will comply with the codes of practice that ensure essential services are maintained for homes, hospitals and businesses.”

The Uisce Éireann customer care helpline is open 24/7 on 1800 278 278 and customers can also contact us on Twitter @IWCare with any queries. For updates please visit the Water Supply Updates section of the Uisce Éireann website.