Sir, – Once again, following a couple of weeks of warm, dry weather, we have had notice from Uisce Éireann that some areas are experiencing drought conditions with water shortages and a reduction in supplies a possibility. This is an annual and predictable event and this year appears at the same time Met Éireann reports a wetter than average spring.
Why, therefore, is the Government not immediately proceeding to develop and provide a series of reservoirs at strategic locations throughout the country to store surplus water from periods of heavy rain and distribute it when and where required during our increasingly longer and drier periods resulting from climate change ?
This simple engineering solution has been long proposed and endlessly discussed, with the usual vast amounts of public money being wasted on consultants, working groups etc.
Every local authority has suitable qualified engineers, as have Waterways Ireland and the OPW, to mention just some of the experts available.
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The Government needs, as a matter of priority and some urgency, to make a series of decisions and issue the necessary instructions and appropriate finance to those bodies fully qualified to deliver the infrastructure needed to ensure a regular supply of water to the whole country all year round.
Action is required now. Governments are elected to govern and act, not to commission endless reports whose sole purpose seems in many cases to postpone any decisions having to be made. – Yours, etc,
HUGH PIERCE,
Celbridge,
Co Kildare.