Councillors’ fury over Irish Water’s ‘copy and paste’ reply

A WEST Cork councillor has criticised a written response from Irish Water in relation to the Castletownshend sewerage scheme and said the reply ‘was the same letter that they received previously.’

At a recent meeting of the local authority, Cllr Joe Carroll (FF) said he was not one bit happy with the reply from Irish Water, that new connections are not provided for directly within the project.

‘It’s the same reply with not one word changed, do they take us to be fools or what?’ asked Cllr Carroll.

‘We explained in detail that no one wants a connection from them and they simply want a service outside their door the same as the rest of the village so they can connect when they want. I don’t see any point in even replying back to them.’

Cllr Carroll stated that Irish Water simply don’t listen to them.

‘It’s an insult to us and someone just pressed a button and sent out the same letter. We deserve proper correspondence and to get the same reply back is sickening. Do we send another letter or are we wasting our time?’

Cllr Karen Coakley (Ind) said that it seems totally unfair that there are eight houses in the village being left out of the scheme.

‘Why should those eight houses be left out and all villages should be treated the same. We can’t have half an area being done and the other half not completed,’ said Cllr Coakley, who called for another letter to be sent to Irish Water.

Cllr John Paul O’ Shea (FG) said he felt Cllr Carroll’s ‘pain’ and reiterated that Irish Water should be covering the entire village and not just 70% of it.

‘If they are going to invest in a number of villages over the next few years and if they don’t cover the entire village then they’re wasting their time,’ said Cllr O’Shea, who said they need to tell councillors why the entire village isn’t being covered.

‘This is crucially important as it could be North Cork the next time or it could be South Cork the time after that.’

Cllr Kevin Murphy (FG) said Irish Water should be accountable for their actions

Cllr Jack White (FG) asked if they could reply seeking ‘enhanced communication’ from Irish Water and he criticised their ‘copy and paste’ approach isn’t good enough.

Irish Water in correspondence said that ‘new connections are not provided for directly within the project.’

‘Any person or entity who needs or wants a new or modified connection to the collection infrastructure must make a pre-connection enquiry in order to establish the feasibility of a connection to the Irish Water network.’