Cork county councillors: Irish Water "answering to nobody."
A transfer of staff from local authorities to the water authority is set to begin this month, but now both county and city councillors have expressed worries about Irish Water's accountability.
Irish Water came under severe criticism for the manner of their communication with local elected representatives at Cork County Council’s first meeting of 2023 on Monday.
Numerous councillors countywide weighed in to express dissatisfaction with "clinics” run by Irish Water to address questions from elected representatives, with many councillors saying they never received responses to their queries even months later.
“How they deal with public representatives is absolutely shocking,” Cobh councillor Sinéad Sheppard told the meeting. “They are answering to nobody, and the road repairs they make after works are shocking.”
Cllr Shepherd said local authority road workers were being called to make repairs after Irish Water were finished in an area and had made unsatisfactory patch-ups to road surfaces.
Irish Water had held a series of “clinics” with Cork County Council staff but the last one was three months ago and several councillors said they had submitted queries to Irish Water staff that were never answered.
“I have made a point of attending clinics and have submitted questions in advance, but time and time again when I go to the clinics the people don’t know I’ve made submissions and don’t have answers,” Kanturk-Mallow area councillor John Paul O' Shea said.
“I went three months ago and I haven’t gotten a response to that query yet; the communication there presently is just not good enough.”
Carrigaline councillor Seamus McGrath, Fianna Fáil, said he spoke for all the councillors from his party when he said they were “all totally dissatisfied with the manner in which Irish Water engages with us. Many have given up on the clinics because they are useless.”
Dedicated liaison officers needed to be appointed by Irish Water to communicate with local representatives, Cllr McGrath said.
City protest in Kilcully
Tripe + Drisheen reported similar complaints from city councillors in late 2022: that as well as concerns over ongoing water quality issues, Irish Water’s response and communications were unsatisfactory.
This morning several city councillors attended a demonstration by residents in Kilcully, in the north of the city bounds, where Irish Water repaired a leaking water main over four months ago and have left the road surface with potholes and a dangerously raised manhole cover.
Irish Water are set to begin taking in Ireland’s 3,000 local authority water workers this month in a bid to make the company, which is due to be rebranded as Uisce Éireann as part of the streamlining move, the standalone national authority for water services.
This process is due to be complete by 2026.
However, not all local authority staff are happy with the move and have been protesting against their own unions as well as holding a first strike action ion the lead-up to Christmas, as Tripe + Drisheen has also reported.
Irish Water delays “jeopardising” County Development Plan
Meanwhile, at Monday’s county council meeting, other councillors complained not only of Irish Water’s slow communications, but of the slow pace at which they were progressing various water treatment facility upgrades in towns and villages set to expand under the Cork County Development Plan 2022-2028, which is pushing for a population increase of 17% across Cork County and a corresponding building boom.
Bandon-Kinsale councillor Kevin Murphy told the meeting that Irish Water’s slow pace “puts the development plan into jeopardy, into a limbo. They are far from starting on numerous projects and look like it could take several years for them to start.”
“Meanwhile planners are refusing to give commitments on planning permissions. There are people in the countryside being refused planning permssion because they are being told they need to be in the towns and villages where the services are, in line with the development plan. But the services aren’t there.”
In a written response to Cork County Council, Irish Water gave progress reports on several Waste Water Treatment projects in Cork county:
The Mallow wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) upgrade project which commenced in 2021 is meant to be completed by the end of 2023.
Lissgoold and Ballineen/Enniskean WWTPs are at “concept design” stage.
Ballinspittle, Belgooley, Castlemagner, Kilumney/ Ovens and Glanworth WWTPs are at “strategic assessment” stage.
For all of these projects at concept design or strategic assessment stages, it is “too early to give an indicative delivery timeline,” Irish Water’s response to Cork County Council said. “The delivery of the projects over the next number of years will be subject to statutory and planning requirements,including land acquisition and planning permission.”