Bank Holiday weekend water breakdown was the fifth in Ratoath since Christmas

The bank holiday weekend got off to a bad start for the residents of Ratoath who found themselves without water on Friday after yet another major burst on the water main feeding the village.

It was the fifth outage for residents of Ratoath and the surrounding area since Christmas and has once again highlighted the urgent need for the infrastructure in the area to be upgraded.

The break on the water main occurred on the Curraha Road, close to where the most recent one occcured just weeks ago and residents were left without water all day as Irish Water crews worked to repair the pipe.

Local councillor Nick Killian said: "This is the fifth water outage since Christmas and the whole village and surrounding area was without water. Planning permission has just been granted to extend water tower facilities in the area and new piping is to be laid and I am calling on Irish Water to start the project sooner than November.

"This is urgent. Businesses are being affected. Families are being affected. We need to move this along. Irish Water needs to get their act together and start work as soon as possible now that planning has been granted. This is a crisis for Ratoath, a village of 10,000 to 12,000 people plus the surrounding areas. 18,000 people were left without water."

Meanwhile, Cllr Damien O’Reilly is calling on Irish Water to design a emergency action plan for future outages as they await tendering and construction of the new pipeline.

"We need rapid response from contractors to fix these outages. Unfortunately this pipeline will keep collapsing every few weeks until the new pipeline is installed next year.

"Irish Water also need to communicate with the affected residents in real time, not just a random tweet for locals on twitter."

Just last week, Meath County Council granted planning permission to Irish Water for an extension to the reservoir at Windmill Hill, Irishtown, Ashbourne, which will double storage capacity and lessen the impact of any water outage due to the extra capacity. The development consists of a new above-ground treated water reservoir, a control building housing a chlorination and welfare facility.

Irish Water begun the procurement process for the replacement of 7km of old water mains and for the construction of the storage reservoir at Windmill Hill, in February.