The water supply situation has improved over the last week due to the continued co-operation of consumers in helping to conserve supplies, the finding and fixing of leaks and the restrictions imposed on supply by each of the 6 Local Authorities in the Dublin Region. Dublin City Council staff have repaired 300 leaks on the watermains network in the last month.


Demand for water this week has averaged around 555 million litres per day with restrictions still in place. The lifting of all restrictions would see demand rise beyond what we are in a position to treat. In addition essential maintenance work has to be undertaken at the water treatment plants that will have the effect of reducing the volume of water that can be treated for a time. Failure to carry out this work could result in a more serious situation arising.


It will therefore be necessary to continue to impose restrictions on supply for some time to come across the entire Region. The levels of restriction have been eased during the past week and the intention is to ease these further over the coming days and weeks to a level where consumers will be least affected, if at all. Night time restrictions have been revised to be in place from 8PM to 6AM and every effort will be made to restrict supply in different areas at different times but it is not possible to share the problem equally amongst all areas when dealing with a supply network such as Dublin’s.


Supply interruptions will also be experienced in areas where leaks are detected and watermains have to be shut down to facilitate repair work. This situation can occur at any time and at any location in the network. It may not be possible give advance warning when this occurs and the time taken to restore supply will vary depending on the particulars of the leak but generally it will be returned in hours.
Progress has bee made in improving service to those areas who have experienced particular difficulties.


Supply to the Sandymount area has benefited from alterations made to the local supply regime.


The Kenilworth area will benefit from repairs carried out to a trunk main during this week and a further repair that will be carried out over this weekend.
The Larkfield area now has service restored.