6 months waiting on Water Connection! Council advised me to dig up road myself???

frustrated_

Hi,
 
I opened a ticket with Irish Water on the 22nd of June this year to have a new water connection brought into the front of my Cork 1860's terraced house . Now 6 months on and having put in an application, paid my fee and dealt with Irish Water and the council several times I am still waiting for someone to come along and start the job. Since June I have had to call the Irish Water and the council nearly every week for updates (over 30 calls made by me) and all that happen are that my tickets gets lost by you, people promise to call back (they don't) and nothing gets resolved. Your system is an absolute shambles.  
 
Finally in November a staff member from the Cork Council Water Dept called out to the house only to tell my handyman that he or I would have to dig up the road and public footpath between ourselves to locate where the water pipe was. He said this was not in Cork Councils or Irish Water's remit and said he would only add the stopcock once I had dug up the footpath and found the pipe. No guidance could be given as to where the pipe might be. This is a public footpath in a town that has a large amount of local and tourist footfall. When I said there was no way I would be tearing up the footpath by myself nor would a contractor take it on as they would need a road permit before they could to do so he was still insistent that this had to be the case. Sine that conversation he or anyone from that dept has failed to call me back.

For obvious reasons it seems crazy that Cork Council would advise the public to dig up roads and footpaths when the customer A) Should not have to do in the first place and a fee was paid to the council to do the job B) Does not have the correct equipment to do the job C) Does not have a road permit or public liability insurance to dig up public paths D) Could leave the footpath is a perilous condition

At this stage I am left in limbo with only partial water supplies running through my house. Where am I supposed to go from here? Why take my money if you will not provide a service? How can you think its acceptable to let someone have to call over 30 times to try and get a basic job done. I had a new gas supply installed in less than 2 weeks on the same footpath...why do Irish Water take 6 months and counting? Why does your complaints page on water.ie say that if a person submits a complaint Irish Water can take 2 months to come to a decision on that complaint.....what customer can wait that long?
 
I really hope someone can finally provide a resolution to this ongoing scenario, It has gone on far too long and taken up huge amounts of my time. I trust it can be sorted. 


Thank you. 

Irish Water: Daniel

Hi frustrated_

If you would like to send your query by PM, with the following details, we will be more than happy to investigate for you:

- Name;

- Address;

- Contact Number; and

- Confirmation that you are the account holder.

As soon as we receive these details, we will look into your query straight away.

Thanks,

Daniel

frustrated_

PM sent, thank you. 

Irish Water: Daniel

Hi frustrated_

We have received your PM and a member of our team will respond shortly. 

Thank you kindly,
Daniel

frustrated_

It has now been one week since I posted my complaint and no one has come back to me on my query. I am now heading for my 35th time contacting Irish Water and the council to get this sorted. 

Irish Water: Mairead

Hi frustrated_

frustrated_ wrote: »

It has now been one week since I posted my complaint and no one has come back to me on my query. I am now heading for my 35th time contacting Irish Water and the council to get this sorted.

We're very sorry for the delay in response and a member of our team will respond to you by PM with an update.

Kind regards,
Mairead

frustrated_

Irish Water: Mairead wrote: »

Hi frustrated_

frustrated_ wrote: »

It has now been one week since I posted my complaint and no one has come back to me on my query. I am now heading for my 35th time contacting Irish Water and the council to get this sorted.

We're very sorry for the delay in response and a member of our team will respond to you by PM with an update.

Kind regards,
Mairead

It has now been one month and 3 weeks since I posted my complaint and no one has come back to me on my query. I am now heading for my 40th time contacting Irish Water and the council to get this matter sorted. At this stage what do I need to do to get this resolved? Go to the press? The courts? You took my money and did not provide a service.

Why have neither of the reps here on boards bothered to follow up to see if the situation was resolved? This is nothing short of outrageous and is horrendous customer service on both of your parts. 

fepper

you must have great patience

Irish Water: Allanah

Hi frustrated_,

frustrated_ wrote: »

It has now been one month and 3 weeks since I posted my complaint and no one has come back to me on my query. I am now heading for my 40th time contacting Irish Water and the council to get this matter sorted. At this stage what do I need to do to get this resolved? Go to the press? The courts? You took my money and did not provide a service.

Why have neither of the reps here on boards bothered to follow up to see if the situation was resolved? This is nothing short of outrageous and is horrendous customer service on both of your parts.

We're very sorry that you have not received an update on this matter and will endeavour to seek further information for you in relation to this. We have sent you a private message and will continue to follow up with you with any updates we receive.

Kind regards,
Allanah

frustrated_

I am still waiting for a response??? The public and private message sent to me from Allanah said that they were looking into the matter, needless to say I have heard nothing back. Can you not see on this forum that you still have an open ticket? Is there no managers in Irish Water monitoring your work?

I applied for the water connection on the 22nd of June 2016? That is 8 months ago now! What is going on and why had no one who monitors this thread taken action and tried to resolve the issue??  I will be sending in a letter to your CEO and naming every support person who has not bothered to follow up on my requests. 

Irish Water: Amy A

Hi frustrated_,

Apologies for the delay in response. We've been following up on your query with the relevant department, and will contact you via PM shortly.

Kind regards,
Amy

frustrated_

Update on this post. 

After 3 years and 3 months I finally received a completed water connection. Yes 39 MONTHS waiting for this issue to be resolved. More than 80 pieces of communication including calls and email were sent to Irish Water to get a simple connection completed.

How was it resolved? Irish Water in Cork County have now outsourced their installations to a 3rd party contractor called Coffees and it was sorted by them in less than 3 weeks. Coffees had a number where you could actually speak to a person who was able to follow up on the issue, they returned all their calls, made an appointment, came out when they said they would and voila, job done!

This has been one of the most stressful things I have ever had to go through and Cork County Council should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. The management team need to seriously investigate why they took 3 years to do something that a contractor sorted immediately. 

To top it all off I had to pay for this 3 year service and at no point was a goodwill refund issued. 

Irish Water: Mairead

Hi frustrated_

We're really sorry to hear you had this experience and if you would like to send your name, address and reference number by private message, we can note this on your account.

Kind regards,
Mairead

listermint

frustrated_ wrote: »

Update on this post. 

After 3 years and 3 months I finally received a completed water connection. Yes 39 MONTHS waiting for this issue to be resolved. More than 80 pieces of communication including calls and email were sent to Irish Water to get a simple connection completed.

How was it resolved? Irish Water in Cork County have now outsourced their installations to a 3rd party contractor called Coffees and it was sorted by them in less than 3 weeks. Coffees had a number where you could actually speak to a person who was able to follow up on the issue, they returned all their calls, made an appointment, came out when they said they would and voila, job done!

This has been one of the most stressful things I have ever had to go through and Cork County Council should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. The management team need to seriously investigate why they took 3 years to do something that a contractor sorted immediately. 

To top it all off I had to pay for this 3 year service and at no point was a goodwill refund issued. 

Pay what ? To whom?