The Mayor of Letterkenny-Milford has once again highlighted the ‘shocking’ plight faced by residents of Bomany, Newmills, Conwal and Tullygay outside Letterkenny who are facing constant water supply issues.
Residents had no water on five of the seven days of each of the past two weeks.
Since September, in Bomany alone there have been 84 outages.
Cllr Donal ‘Mandy’ Kelly, who is the Mayor of the Municipal District, said that people’s mental health is deteriorating over the matter.
He told the council that water issues have been ongoing in Conwal and Newmills since 2006.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous what is going on. Residents are reporting it constantly and getting nowhere. They are at their wit’s end and deservedly so,” Cllr Kelly said.
“People have had to leave their own houses to find facilities elsewhere so they can wash their kids and their clothes. It’s shocking in this day and age.”
He added that people have to buy new washing machines and dishwashers because they the appliances are being damaged by being ‘starved of water’.
Cllr Kelly has repeated his call for a face-to-face meeting with Uisce Eireann (formerly Irish Water) to address the major issues.
Councillors have an online meeting with the company on Thursday, but Cllr Kelly complained that the meetings are a ‘tick the box exercise’.
“We are getting nowhere,” Cllr Kelly said.
“The team in the council here are trying hard to get this resolved but I feel they are also getting let down by Irish Water, we have to get more action.”
Cllr Kelly also called for a report to examine if there is sufficient water supply in the area if a fire were to occur.
He said: “The residents at Conwal, Tullygay and Bomany fear that if there was a house fire, there is not a drop of water to feed a fire engine. I know we have an appliance in the fire station to take water out, but that is neither here nor there, Irish Water have a responsibility for this.”
Cllr Ciaran Brogan added his frustration over the lack of face-to-face communication between Irish Water and elected members.
“It’s very serious to think that we are public representatives and they choose to ignore us, the very least they could do is tell us where they are at,” he said, suggesting that the problem should be raised higher than Donegal County Council level, but at Oireachtas level.
