FIVE water breaks in five weeks have left residents of Shannonvale and Ballinascarthy in anger and despair.

Cllr Isobel Towse (SD) raised the issue at a meeting of the West Cork Municipal District on Monday saying Uisce Éireann needs to be taken to task because ‘patch job after patch job is not cutting it’.

She called on officials to write to Uisce Éireann to request a water main upgrade because the breaks are now a weekly occurrence.

Cllr Towse said the latest outage, on Sunday, brought to five the number of unplanned breaks to the water supply of residents of Shannonvale and surrounding areas.

‘There was an additional outage during the same five-week period that was for planned works,’ said Cllr Towse, who is of the opinion that this area needs to be included in the 2026 programme of works.

Alan Dromey, chairperson of Shannonvale Community Group, told us: ‘The breaks have become a major source of frustration for residents, who are often left without reliable information or timelines for resolution.’

He listed outages on August 31st and September 5th; a notified outage on September 16th; unscheduled works on September 17th; as well as a two-day outage on October 3rd and 4th after a water main burst near Clonakilty; followed by another water main burst on October 5th.

Alan explained that the water mains comes from Clonakilty to Shannonvale, Ballinascarthy and other areas.

‘These repeated failures severely disrupt people’s daily lives, as well as business operations,’ he added. ‘And the continuous breaks are also seriously undermining the road surface because most of the breaks are all along a 100m stretch of roadway.’

The interruptions to the water supply are creating a genuine concern among residents regarding the reliability and the quality of their supply of drinking water.

The Southern Star contacted Uisce Éireann for a comment.