'Huge concern' expressed over water supply disruption in Clare Island

CONCERN has been expressed for Clare Island residents after islanders were left without running water for extended periods six weeks after the lifting of a boil water notice.

The disruption commenced on Tuesday November 7 for sporadic periods until 12pm on Wednesday November 8 when the water supply was cut off from these parts of the island.

The supply interrupted sporadically after Uisce Éireann – formerly known as Irish Water – began conducting step testing following suspected leaks. This resulted in parts of the island being left without water for prolonged periods. 

The utility had described this disruption as ‘short interruptions’ and supplied a pallet of water to residents on Monday – one week after the supply was first cut off.

Joanne Carroll, Community Development Coordinator for Cliara Development Company DAC, described the lack of running water as a ‘huge concern’ for residents on the island – which had a population of 138 in the 2022 Census.

Speaking to The Mayo News today (Friday), Ms Carroll said that one resident had been unable to take a shower prior to sailing off the island recently.

"Our remote location leaves us very vulnerable in an already under resourced (for fire equipment) small community. No running water is a huge risk. Any businesses operating during this period also carries higher risk on their insurance, as running water is necessary at all times," said Ms Carroll.

Ms Carroll said that islanders had not received prior notification of the disruption from Uisce Éireann until she requested an update on Monday (November 13).

The island has had persistent issues with water quality and has been issued with five ‘boil water notices’ and two water outages in the past two years.

Despite appeals to Uisce Éireann to provide contingency water supplies to the island and to be proactive for further water outages, this has not been yet fulfilled, according to Ms Carroll.

When asked to provide a timeline for upgrade works to commence to the Clare Island water supply network the utility said that such projects ‘take anywhere from 18-24 months to complete’.

Ms Carroll described this timeline as ‘abysmal and shockingly unacceptable’.

"Clare Island’s population consists partly of vulnerable people in the elderly, pregnant women and infant children, not to mention young families and convalescents," she said. 

"Uisce Éireann outline its purpose is to ‘rise to the challenge of delivering transformative water services that enable communities to thrive’. In the case of Clare Island, Uisce Éireann has failed to rise to any challenge and have not delivered even close to a ‘transformative water service’ to the Clare Island community," she added.

Ms Carroll said that some part of the island had no running water for ten consecutive days as a result of the disruption.

However, a spokeswoman for Uisce Éireann denied that this was the case after The Mayo News contacted the utility for a statement. 

"Uisce Éireann was made aware of an interruption to the water supply on Clare Island this Tuesday, November 14 and immediately began working to identify the issue.

"Difficulties were encountered in restoring supply to all parts of the network and dedicated crews worked through the issues in recent days with water restored to all homes by Thursday, November 16. 

Uisce Éireann regrets the inconvenience caused to the community," concluded a statement from Uisce Éireann.