Christmas Day water disruptions in Longford ‘an awful impact on families’

The ongoing difficulty with disruption to water services around County Longford was highlighted over Christmas as a number of homes in Ballymahon were left without water supply on Christmas Day.

Cllr Pat O’Toole, the Cathaoirleach of Ballymahon MD, said the disruption had a huge impact on many families: “There were a large number of people discommoded and inconvenienced by what's going on,” he told the Leader.

Water outages in county Longford this year have increased steadily by 74% with significant impact on the local economy.
However it's the toll it took on families over the festive period that the Fianna Fáil representative highlighted: “It's a terrible inconvenience, one that has an awful impact on families, particularly young families.

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“How many families were left without water for baby bottles on Christmas morning? This is an ongoing problem. We had 17 outages from January until December 2024, with most occurring at weekends, which has a big impact on households, farms and businesses.”

He believes the economic impact of the ongoing disruptions needs to be addressed: “It was very disruptive for farmers as well. We have quite a few dairy farmers around here, and they need a lot of water, and while some of them have reserves or a well, a lot are reliant on the mains water.

“Business in Ballymahon Town, like the Cooney's Hotel, the cafes, the restaurants, and the filling stations, where they're doing coffees and teas, all have to deal with this far too often.”

Cllr O'Toole says the issue for Ballymahon appears to be on a five kilometre stretch of road to Carrickboy: “Most of the 17 outages from January until December 2024 occurring at weekends," he said. “People are hugely frustrated by the amount of times this is happening.”

The Fianna Fáil representative says the hold up in addressing the problem is going on too long: “They had an agreement, which I believe went as far as going to tender, to replace the pipes. There's a new pipeline to go into Center Parcs, but they need to address the problems for the public as well.”

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Cllr O'Toole said his message to Uisce Éireann is simple: “I'd say get this job done immediately. That five or six kilometres stretch of road, where the pipework is probably very old, needs to be addressed. As soon as January 6 comes, get that tender, get it finished and go out and do the job.”