10,000 homes and businesses still without water after Storm Emma
Around 10,000 homes and businesses are left without water this morning while more than 120,000 have restricted supplies.
Irish Water says it is watching demand carefully after an extra 60 million litres a day was used during the weekend.
"People without water are in Wexford, Cork, Laois, Kerry and Tipperary and the restrictions are right across the country - east Meath, Longford, Leitrim, Galway, Westmeath, Kerry, Waterford, Cork, Kildare and other places," said Eamon Gallen, General Manager of Irish Water.
"In addition, we also have 3,000 people on storm-related boil water notices. The majority of those are in Aughrim and the remainder are mainly on small schemes in Waterford."
Approximately 5,000 customers in Wexford town remain without water due to a burst watermain. Alternative water supplies have been put in place as crews work to repair the burst. See https://t.co/OWLutKHvQJ for more #StormEmma #IrishWater pic.twitter.com/tikW4QCLWu
— Uisce Éireann - Irish Water (@IrishWater) March 5, 2018
A Dublin councillor is lodging an emergency motion over a massive surge in water usage.
Irish Water have confirmed a ten percent increase in the Dublin area, which represents an extra 60 million litres of water per day.
Councillor Paul McAuliffe says that's beyond capacity and will inevitably lead to water shortages across the Capital.
"We need to avoid a situation where water pressure is being switched on and off in the city," said Cllr McAuliffe.
"In 2010 and 2011, we saw significant disruption for a number of weeks following shortages and we want to try and avoid that at all costs."
The community spirit we have seen during the freeze must now be focused on conserving water in the Capital. @IrishWater has confirmed an extra 60M Ltrs has been added to the daily usage. These few hours are critical if we are to avoid wide spread shortages. pic.twitter.com/s34u0AHeFp
— Paul McAuliffe TD (@PaulMcauliffe) March 4, 2018
Meanwhile, it is hoped postal collection and delivery serevices can resume today.
Efforts continued through the night to distribute mail throughout the country where possible.
Many post offices opened on Saturday with more expected to do so today.
Spokesperson for An Post, Anna Mc Hugh says local conditions will have to be considered: "Thankfully a huge number of post offices managed to open on Saturday morning to serve customers and we will be doing whatever we can to open all offices but again local road conditions, access and safety will be paramount so hopefully the thaw will continue and we will be able to open as many offices as possible."
2/2 We will continue to monitor conditions locally and do everything possible to resume normal Retail, Letter and Parcel services for customers. Updates available here and at https://t.co/XFrebERIsE
— An Post (@Postvox) March 4, 2018
