Murrisk and Lecanvey to have water in 2022

Provision to be made for future Louisburgh connection

Edwin McGreal

Murrisk and Lecanvey should finally have quality running water in 2022. That’s the target date for the delivery of the connection of the west Mayo villages to the Lough Mask water supply.
The villages have been campaigning for years to be connected to a clean water supply. Currently, brown water frequently runs from the taps of homes along the southern end of Clew Bay. The current supply is from Croagh Patrick, and it is undrinkable.
Provision will also be made in the project for a possible future connection of the current Louisburgh public water supply to the Lough Mask supply.
The long-awaited Murrisk Community Water Connection (formerly called the Murrisk Group Water Scheme) was announced in September by Minister Michael Ring. At the December meeting of the West Mayo Municipal District, Iarla Moran of Mayo County Council’s Water Services section gave an update on progress since on the project, which is being led by the council.
He told the meeting that the tender for the design is set to go out in the first quarter of 2020 and revealed the target date for completion is 2022.
“Murrisk/Lecanvey is in the current programme which is 2019 to 2021 which is for rural water so while it might not be delivered by the end of 2021, it should be well on the way and I would expect it to be finished [in] 2022. That’s our current target,” said Mr Moran.
He said the project will connect up to 400 homes in Murrisk and Lecanvey as far as Kilsallagh, close to where the current Louisburgh public water supply starts.
Connection to Louisburgh
Following questions from Cllr Christy Hyland, who said people in Louisburgh wanted to be connected to the scheme, Mr Moran said the project will ‘also include for the upgrade of the pipe to allow for future delivery of water to Louisburgh from the Lough Mask scheme’.
He added that while an actual connection to Louisburgh is not part of this capital project, he believes such an connection is inevitable.
“I would see it as something that will happen as the distance from the cut off point (of the Murrisk/Lecanvey connection) to Louisburgh is only going to be about three kilometers or so. At some point in the future the Louisburgh plant will need investment and the capital business plan will show putting in the pipe will be a better solution than building a new plant in Louisburgh. I would be very hopeful it would happen, but I cannot give you any definitive on it, because it is an Irish Water project. It is not in the current investment plan for the next three to four years.
“We will get the water as far as Murrisk and Lecanvey. We will have the pipe big enough by agreement with Irish Water. The extension of that (to Louisburgh) will be a capital programme for Irish Water,” he said.
He said there will be a fixed cost per house to connect and added it is likely to be dearer for those who do not sign up at the start and wish to connect later on. He added the scheme will require a certain amount of houses to connect in order to be viable.
Cllr Peter Flynn (FG) praised Minister Michael Ring and Irish Water for getting the project this far.
“I actually don’t think we would be talking about the Murrisk scheme today but for two reasons, one that we have Irish Water in place and a company that is responsible for sanitary services in our country and most importantly, the single most important point, Minister Ring. Without Minister Ring we wouldn’t be talking about this today and that is the reality of life in politics in Ireland,” he said.
“I agree with you,” said Cllr Christy Hyland (Ind), who also encouraged people to ‘avail of the scheme if they can at all’.