Longford County Council hopes to restore roadside water pumps

Councillor Martin Monaghan has called for the reintroduction of roadside pumps in light of recent water outages.

“I call on Longford County Council to reintroduce the roadside pumps in light of recent water outages due to ESB issues, I am calling on Longford County Council to bring a programme of works to reinstate/refurbish/reintroduce the usage of our roadside water pumps and wells. These will then form a part of an emergency plan in the event of future water outages in our rural areas.” he called.

He said the motion is a response to the massive outage that were seen following Storm Éowyns visit to Longford.

During these outages, thousands of people across the county were left without water.

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“There is lots of wells and pumps that are in peoples lands and the side of the roads and I dont’t think they are a part of the grid service of Uisce Éireann.

“I think that these would be a good thing to have in each area,” Cllr Monaghan remarked.
“As we have found out from Uisce Éireann, they have provided water stations to give us water in tankers [during outages] that still have a boil water notice.

“We have one in Newtownbond, one in Newtownforbes,” he explains, “And these pumps are running constantly.”
Cllr Garry Murtagh responded saying, “I think this is a good notice of motion, here’s a lot of wells and I know tidy towns have pumps there.

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“They bring something to the community and if we can make them work again then I think they would be a help.

“You’re correct in what you’re saying,” he concluded when discussing Cllr Monaghan’s argument that they would help in outages.