Outages impacting customers served by Ardfinnan Regional Public Water Supply
04 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 customers supplied by the Ardfinnan Regional Public Water Supply. This has been caused by an operational issue at the water treatment plant resulting in reservoir levels depleting to low levels.
Approximately 11,000 customers supplied by the Ardfinnan Regional Public Water Supply may be impacted in the following areas: Ardfinnan, Grange, Knocklofty, Newcastle, Ballyclerihan, Cahir (Clonmel side of the bridge, Tipperary Road and Mitchelstown Road (R913), Ballingarrane (as far as the Cahir road roundabout Clonmel),Market Hill and Red City area (Fethard), Kilnamack West, Co Waterford. The Graigue Group Water Scheme supplied by Ardfinnan Public Water Supply is also affected.
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 supply will not commence returning to customers until Saturday, 5 August with some customers at higher elevations likely to be impacted until Monday, 7 August or Tuesday, 8 August.
To support impacted customers, Uisce Éireann is currently arranging the delivery of alternative water supplies with clean drinking water. By 6pm this evening (Friday, 4 August) Alternative Water Supplies will be distributed to the following locations:
- Ballyclerahan Village
- Lisronagh Village
- Cahir Town at Coláiste Dun Uiscigh
- Cahir Town Castle Carpark
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.
Customers are reminded that the Ardfinnan Regional Public Water Supply is currently on a Boil Water Notice due to operational issues at the water treatment plant.
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. To protect public health, we have also had to put a number of areas on Boil Water Notices from midnight Tuesday 1 August. It is essential that customers follow this advice and boil their water.
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 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.