Louisburgh water

No water in Louisburgh pipes for two years

Emer Gallagher

THE PEOPLE of Louisburgh ‘have been led up the garden path’ over the water scheme that has been promised for the area, according to a local councillor.
“It is important that the people of Louisburgh know what is happening and that it will be two years before there is water in the pipes. The people from Louisburgh have been led up the garden path. They thought they would have water last year,” said an irate Cllr Austin Francis O’Malley, at a meeting of the Water Supply and Sewerage Strategic Policy Committee (SPC) yesterday (Monday). He outlined that reservoirs were erected in 1991 for the purpose of the scheme.
Mr Brian O’Reilly, Senior Engineer with the Water Services and Capital Works Section at Mayo County Council, told the elected members that a budget application had been made to the Department in February for the provision of water for the Louisburgh scheme but there had been no response despite consistent correspondence on behalf of Mayo County Council.
The Department of the Environment have to approve the budget application for the local authority before the scheme can move forward, it was heard.
Mr O’Reilly outlined that once the budget was approved for the Louisburgh scheme it would then be back in the hands of Mayo County Council where it could be met with a ‘difficulty with funding’. But Mr O’Reilly outlined that Louisburgh would not see water flow through the pipes for at least two years. “Until the Lough Mask Treatment Plant is upgraded there won’t be water in the pipes for Louisburgh.”
In reference to the policy that will see Mayo County Council obliged to pay for a percentage of the scheme, which in some cases can be between 25 and 30 per cent of the scheme’s budget, Cllr O’Malley said: “It will be the polluter pays that will be the problem [with lack of progress on the scheme]. It’s not good enough and we will not have a new water supply for at least two years.”