Charles Ward blasts ‘completely unacceptable’ water issues in Inishowen, brands water charge calls ‘outrageous’

Transcript

00:00Water leakages is a huge issue in Donegal. Many of our pipes are not fit with the pressure and

00:05are bursting. Staff are often forced to do emergency repairs at the weekend, which has

00:10knock-on effects and costs. Ishka Irn constantly sending out repair reports. What is really needed

00:17is a complete infrastructural update. In In Ashown, the upgrade of the Mindoran to Kilmani

00:23trunk main, despite, needs to be fast-tracked. It has burst on so many occasions. There have

00:29been multiple significant outages affecting hundreds of homes for weeks at a time. We were

00:34recently informed that upgrades would proceed. As I said, the government, if they truly cared about

00:39this water conservation, they would have prioritised this and fixed this problem. With many others,

00:46there's millions and millions of lengths of pipe throughout this country that are burst.

00:52As well as this, there are currently two areas of Mallonhead and the Wild Atlantic Way that the

00:57Council aren't able to repair the roads because Ishka Irn won't complete the pipe improvement

01:03works that are needed in the area. This is completely unacceptable. Shockingly, water is

01:08actually leaving In Ashown to service other parts of the county with In Ashown left airlocked. In the

01:13country where it rains almost every day, we should be able to store water in reservoirs built in local

01:19areas. Rural areas are so badly serviced when it comes to water. Yet again, the government suggested an

01:24introduction of a charge for an extremely poor service. It's outrageous. Tens of thousands of

01:31people from across the country marched in Dublin to protest at water charges and I was one of them

01:35and I will do it again. Nearly a decade later, the government is still trying to find ways to force

01:40and charge people for water during the cost of living crisis. People are struggling to get by with

01:45ever increasing bills for food, electricity. We must stop and scrap water charges altogether once and for all.