Water mains problems/shortages in Drogheda area

Jessie Weak Transition wrote: »

In fairness, only so many can work in a hole at once. They are working flat out on it. What more do you want?

I don't think they are actually working flat-out on the problem. Whatever about the physics of fitting workers into a hole, if there was the skilled workers available, could they not authorise another crew to work through the night/late evening? (Not the same crew as the day, for those worrying about the worker's health and well-being). That maybe because this is ongoing since Friday now, it demands more than a 9-5 approach at this stage?

However, if there is only a limited amount of people with the skills to fix and work on the problem, that idea would be a non-runner. If it's simply a matter of authorising the money to fund an extra crew, then it should have been done by now.

eeguy wrote: »

A friend works for IW in the North East and said the whole system was on the brink of collapse for years.

Substandard repairs, hundreds of leaks and an infrastructure that wasn't built to cope with the explosion of housing and industry during the boom years.

While im not surprised something like this has happened I'm sure the Can't Pay Won't Pay brigade will be out using this against IW.

Quite the opposite, from the sentiment I'm picking up online so far in various comments sections and fora. I've seen more of the "Sure didn't they assault IW contracters in Drogheda? Let them rot" - "Water in Drogheda gone? That'll hardly make a difference", those kind of comments, than the 'Can't Pay, Won't Pay' brigade using this against Irish Water. We really can be a nasty, detached bunch of bastards when we sit down at a keyboard.

I'd imagine that this episode will show many people, who didn't realise/care previously, that water doesn't magically form when we turn the tap on, and the infrastructure badly needs investment. It's one thing well-paid politicians and executives telling us we must pay for water on the television - It's another thing living it, to see and experience your water cut off for 4+ days because of the decades-old, substandard infrastructure.

Irish Water/the government have an opportunity here to show the rest of the country why we need to invest in our water supply. However, too much time will be spent in the aftermath shít-flinging from side to side and not doing anything overly-productive, while we kick the can further down the road.

To go on further - As a resident of the Drogheda area, I'm used to my water getting cut off several times per year. Often this will just last for a span of hours during the day, but a disruption to the water supply is not uncommon where I live. From what eeguy said about his IW worker friend, and what I've read from similar sources elsewhere online, it seems that the system is not fit for purpose in the Drogheda area.

Why then, are there houses getting flung up in areas which are already putting the infrastructure under pressure? Not just the water infrastructure, but areas where roads are already chock-a-block with traffic and where schools are already out the door with students? It seems that the developers/planners just need a bit of land to build the house on, and there is where forward/social planning starts and ends.

It all results in something like we've experienced in the last 4 days, and something we'll probably experience again before the year is out.

Yes, there are lessons to be learned here, and some of the 'Can't Pay, Won't Pay' collective should observe some of them. However, we really should be using this to look at the bigger picture - As it is, Drogheda and its infrastructure is under immense pressure. Before heaping onto this with new developments, maybe time should be spent in upgrading and repairing this infrastucture to suit the ambition of the developers and planners who are currently flat-out.

Water returned for a while. Depending on your area, it could be due to come on soon...

https://www.water.ie/news/irish-water-mobilises-wat/index.xml