First stage of water repairs complete
The first stage of the repair of the burst water main, which has caused chaotic water outages across south and east Meath, is complete.Â
Irish Water confirmed this afternoon that this first stage in the process is finished.
Careful management of water entering the water main is now taking place and the flow and pressure of the water is being increased gradually to test the pipe.
'As the reservoirs fill, it is anticipated that supply will begin to be restored to customers over the coming days, beginning on Thursday. It may take several days for full service to be restored to all, particularly those on high ground and at the edge of the network,' said a spokesperson.
She said the longer term replacement of the 2.2km pipeline would mean a time frame of at least 18 months and a budget of €2-3m  to complete the work.
'A detailed programme for complete replacement will take a number of weeks to finalise and we will need to undertake detailed planning and design work before we can be confident around the exact timeframe for this to happen,' she said.