Infrastructure and Water (see warning in post #1)

The underlying issue with the failure of the supply pipe to the treatment works is that as a direct result of a lack of investment over a number of decades, there now is no sensible reserve storage of treated water for huge parts of the area that are supplied from that one treatment plant. The pipe failed, and because of a lack of contingency planning, a huge chunk of the area ran out of water long before a plan to get alternatives in place was operating. I find it hard to believe that it wasn't possible to get alternative pumps and suitable pipes to lay in an emergency supply to the treatment works, even if it meant setting up temporary intermediate tanks so that multiple pumps could be used in stages. In the same vein, it should have been an urgent priority to get tankers in to service to move water to the storage tanks at places like Ashbourne within hours of the failure, not days, especially after they tried 3 repairs and none of them worked, and a viable repair plan was a number of days out.

There's no doubt that Irish Water inherited a can of worms, and to make it worse, I doubt that there was anyone from Louth County Council who had detailed knowledge of that pipe, given it's been in the ground for close on 50 years. Hopefully, IW will give high priority to installing the replacement, which ideally will be failure proofed, the cost of installing 2 pipes in the one trench is probably not as high as having to replace it at some stage in the future if it fails.

The treatment works at Drogheda is clearly critical, so depending on one pipeline to supply it would seem to me to be a very fraught strategy. That's only part of the problem, there then remains to be addressed the lack of adequate storage all round the network, so that if a critical pipe or pump fails, there is enough stored water to allow for a contingency plan to be put into action, as things stand now, there are parts of Ashbourne that run out of water long before the tower is empty, because it's too low in relation to parts of the town that have been built since the original tower was built.

Given the crazy way that the political system works these days, the chances of a new larger and higher tower being built any time soon is probably about as good as the chances of pink snow in August, there's no votes in a reliable water supply, as was so clearly demonstrated over the last while.

I have very little faith in the senior management of IW, as their track record in previous places was far from good, and as usual, because IW is semi state, there is no way to remove people who don't perform, and we've seen how that concept works with things like the HSE. I've had personal experience of trying to engage with IW on other issues relating to flooding, and to say that it's not been good would be putting it mildly.

The potential impact on the economy of the area that was affected is massive, but recognising and resolving that will require some serious engagement and commitment from the whole political system, which I don't see happening any time soon, the costs of that engagement will frighten them away yet again.

Just as well that Leixlip wasn't affected, the implications for a company like Intel being out of action for a week because of a failure of the water supply don't bear thinking about. A company like Intel could very easily decide to move their entire production over an issue like this, the cost to the economy would be massive, way beyond the actual cost of making sure the infrastructure is adequate for the job.