Outages impacting customers served by Galtee Regional Public Water Supply

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 wish to advise that customers supplied by the Galtee Regional Public Water Supply, which supplies approximately 15,000 people, may now be experiencing loss of supply in many areas.

This has been caused by an operational issue at the water treatment plant resulting in reservoir levels depleting to low levels. 

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 most customers will not have a supply returned until Sunday, 6 August with the remainder having supply returned on Monday, 7 August and Tuesday, 8 August.

However there are additional water treatment plants operating which normally supplement the Cashel area. Therefore some customers in the Cashel area will experience reduced pressure instead of a loss of supply.

Customers supplied by the Galtee Regional Public Water Supply will be impacted in the following areas: Emly, Lattin, Ballinard, Cullen, Ballywire, Kilross, Limerick Junction, Monard, Lisvarnane, Rosadrehid, Bansha, Tankerstown, Kilfeacle, Golden, Cashel, Rosegreen, New Inn and surrounding areas.

To support impacted customers, Uisce Éireann has arranged the delivery of an alternative water supply with drinking water to the following locations which will remain in place until water is returned all customers:

• Mount Bruis National School 
• Cullen Village
• Lisvernane Village 
• New Inn 
• Rosegreen Village 
• Rossidrehid Village 
• Monard Village 
• Bansha Village 
• Emly Village 
• Lattin Village 
• Tesco Car Park, Cashel 
• Dominic Street, Cashel 
• Castle Green Avenue, Cashel 
• Dean Ryan Terrace, Cashel 
• Oliver Plunkett Terrace, Cashel

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 Galtee Regional Public Water Supply is currently on a Boil Water Notice due to increased turbidity impacting the treatment processes 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.