Family battling low water pressure for eight years

A Ballinea resident continues to endure major problems with his water supply and is calling on Irish Water to finally resolve the eight-year problem with low water pressure in his home.

Paddy Burke from Bryanstown, Ballinea, Mullingar, is a tenant of Westmeath County Council and said the daily water outage is causing serious issues for the entire family.

Paddy and his wife Sabrina live at their current home with four of their eight children. The four girls are up at 6am daily to get showered before school, because there is no water supply in the evenings. Paddy buys bottled water in bulk every week for drinking, cooking, washing teeth and other essentials.

On a recent Wednesday, the family were without water from 7pm the previous evening and they faced major early morning obstacles trying to get children ready for school. Paddy says the low water pressure problems is worse in the summer months.

Works required

In response to a query from the Westmeath Examiner, Irish Water said that in order for Mr Burke to experience higher pressures, it will be necessary for the owner of this property to carry out private side works to provide a break tank and pumps to pressurise service on the private side.

“This is a common solution put in place by many customers around the country who experience low pressure due to their elevation or location,” Irish Water stated.

“If Mr Burke is not the house owner, we would advise that he contact his landlord regarding a private side solution to increase pressure to his home.”

Paddy now intends to pursue the matter further with Westmeath County Council, but he had little joy when he contacted the council’s water services section when problems first arose in 2015.

“They (county council) put me on to Irish Water, and I had a couple of calls with them. After I waited a while one day, they put me on to a customer services person, who was abroad. I was given a reference number.

“I’ve been going back and forth since and have had no joy. I was on Midlands 103 two or three years ago talking about the problem. Peter Burke tried for me, and got on to Irish Water three or four times, and couldn’t get any answers.”

He said he and his family have been “passed from Billy to Jack” between various agencies, and have had no joy in ending daily water outages, which usually last seven or eight hours, including peak times.

Irish Water said that water pressure is currently at its lowest in that area of the county, but are satisfied the supply will soon return to full strength. They are aware of low pressure in the Bryanstown area of Ballinea and a high demand in local townlands is exacerbating the problem.

“Since 17 April Uisce Éireann has observed higher than normal demand in the Kilbeggan and Tyrrellspass areas, which has resulted in extended pumping periods at the Tallyho and Ballinea Water Pressure Boosting Stations. This increased pumping has extended the time period where water pressure is at its lowest in the Bryanstown areas. From local enquiries, Uisce Éireann feel that the increased local demand is temporary and that normal pumping regime should resume shortly,” a statement said.

“Our investigations also show that the pressure varies across the day – however, there should be adequate pressure to fill attic tanks at night.”

That is not the case in the Burke household.

Uisce Éireann also explained that they have been working in the Ballinea area to replace old water pipes.

“In response to the complaints of low pressure in this area, Uisce Éireann is maintaining this area as a focus for pipe repair (leakage find and fix) activities. We have replaced 1.6km of ageing and problematic water mains in Ballinea that were prone to frequent bursts and have also carried out some re-configuration of the watermain distribution network elsewhere to reduce pumping and increase pressure in the Bryanstown area.”