Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)

I wish to raise water infrastructure and, in particular, issues that have been experienced by residents in Dargle Wood, Knocklyon. There has been a marked increase in water outages over the last few months. The residents have had eight separate outages since the beginning of this year alone, but such outages have been a persistent issue for years now. There have been 23 water outages in this estate since 2022, some lasting days at a time. I have been contacted by some residents who have lived in that area for decades and they have never experienced anything like this before. If it were an isolated incident, you might say, "Fair enough. It is not great, but these things can happen." However, it has been persistently a recurring problem for years now and it appears to be just getting worse. As the Minister of State can imagine, it is incredibly disruptive. Homes in the estate went three days without water over the Easter weekend. They could not wash dishes, wash clothes, take showers, flush their toilets, drink tap water, etc. These are the basics. Residents have also been expressing their frustration to me about the speed, or the lack thereof, on the part of Uisce Éireann when it comes to sorting out the burst pipes that are causing the outages when they occur.

I understand that residents who report these issues to Uisce Éireann get told that they will be sorted by a particular time on a particular day but then there is no sign of the crews. During that burst pipe on the Easter weekend, residents were told by Uisce Éireann that its crews had been out working on it over the weekend. That was not true. Work actually did not begin until the following Tuesday. There is a real sense among the residents of Dargle Wood that they are just being fobbed off, and this cannot go on.

I have been in contact already with Uisce Éireann on the issue a number of times, and until recently the approach seemed to be just patching up the pipe anytime a burst happens. It cannot be just a case of putting a plaster on this problem consistently. There are serious issues here with the whole pipe network servicing the area. Uisce Éireann does seem to have acknowledged that and that there has been significant development around the Dargle Wood estate in recent years. Some 480 apartments went in adjacent to the estate just a couple of years ago. That is great - we always want to see more homes built - but the water infrastructure obviously has not kept pace and is struggling and failing with the amount of pressure being put on it now. I am not sure if any sort of analysis was done prior to the new apartments going in on the quality of the pipes servicing the areas surrounding them to determine if they would be able to cope with the additional network connections. Regardless of that, it is evident that they are not coping. The most recent correspondence I have received from Uisce Éireann acknowledges that the pipe network feeding the area is ageing and not in the best condition. That network, the pipes in Dargle Wood and other nearby areas, should have been upgraded at the time those new apartments were going in. The pipes are clearly at the end of their working life and are being pushed beyond their useful limits.

I understand that Uisce Éireann is planning on reconfiguring the network and installing pressure management in the area later in the year. I will be asking the Minister of State that this be brought forward and prioritised in order that the issues can be addressed sooner. Ideally, we would also see an upgrade of the pipe network. Residents have not been able to get straight answers out of Uisce Éireann on what has been causing the problem, but it seems that Uisce Éireann has now admitted that, basically, it is the state the pipes are in. Will the Minister commit to that being looked into and perhaps provide a timeline in the near future for a network upgrade, which is clearly necessary?

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