Water restrictions may extend beyond Dublin, Irish Water says

Irish Water has indicated there is a possibility of night-time water restrictions extending outside the greater Dublin area.

Angela Ryan, water resources manager at the utility, said it was looking at “varying levels of restrictions in various areas”.

“We’re looking at resource management right across the country, the amount of water available in supply and the demand for water,” she said. “Right now as part of the existing drought conditions, we’re looking at similar issues right across the country.”

A number of areas across the country are already affected by night-time water restrictions from 10pm until 6am, including parts of Carlow, Galway and Limerick.

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Ms Ryan said the night-time restrictions will allow water conservation be achieved through a combination of reduced usage and leaks from the system.

“It will be a combination of both but obviously leakages are over 24 hours and usage tends to be over 12 hours,” she said.

Darragh Murphy, communications manager with Irish Water said the restrictions are at night in order to try and limit the impact on homes and businesses.

“What we’re trying to do is put on those pressure restrictions and do that at a period of time that least disrupts the economy and people going about their daily lives,” he said.

Irish Water said it was impossible to determine at this point how many litres of water would be saved per night as a result of the restrictions.

Emma Kennedy, financial analyst and founder of Kenny Analysis, said the utility’s leakage figures were “off the charts”.

Irish Water says it plans to reduce water leakage rates from 45 per cent to 38 per cent by 2021. The utility’s managing director, Jerry Grant, said earlier this year the Dublin network has a leakage rate of 37 per cent, amounting to 207 million litres a day.

Pipes are being replaced at a rate of 1 per cent a year, the maximum possible “without bringing the city to a standstill”, he said.

Ms Kennedy, who has done research on behalf of opponents of the Shannon pipeline plan, told The Irish Times "there will be major problems if Irish Water sticks with that target".

She said the 1 per cent replacement target meant “some of them will not to be touched for 100 years”.

“For them [Irish Water] to say that 1 per cent is an adequate target given the state of the water supply system is impossible to accept,” she said.

“Dublin will have a total nightmare in the coming decades with bursts and outages if Irish Water sticks with that target. It’s almost inconceivable that it won’t.”