HOUSEHOLDERS in Adrigole fear they could face Christmas without water, amid calls for urgent action to fix their broken supply network.

Patience is wearing thin among residents of the Beara village who have regularly been left without running water, in some cases for up to 12 days.

A water main pipe along Healy Pass that repeatedly bursts has seen countless repairs from Uisce Éireann.

The negative impact on homes, businesses, schools and playschools was top of the agenda at a packed meeting at the Caha Centre attended by around 120 residents last Friday.

Kieran O’Shea, who called the meeting on behalf of Adrigole Water Action Group, said there had already been 14 outages since July of this year.

He said: ‘We are in a crisis. The pipe at the Healy Pass road is beyond repair and needs replacing immediately. We need a long-term solution. Our biggest fear is the uncertainty that the water can go at any time.

‘We’re concerned that there will be no water when people come home to their families over Christmas. It’s always in the back of our minds.’

Kathryn Kingston, of Adrigole Family Resource Centre, said the water issues affected all activities there including gardening, bingo and especially childcare.

She said: ‘We have also had outages of electricity, the internet and phones since July. We cater for one- to five-year-olds who wash their hands ten times a day on average. You can imagine the amount of problems it causes.'

Louisa O’Donoghue, principal at Trafask National School, said: ‘During the outage on October 2nd we remained open only by relying on baby wipes.’

Vanessa Charron, of Mossie’s BnB, said: ‘At times we’ve had to refund guests because the water quality was so bad. We are thinking about investing in our own tank that can store 13,000 litres. We’ve had to give guests buckets of water to flush the toilet. It’s embarrassing.’

Fianna Fáil TD Christopher O’Sullivan, who is Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, attended the meeting and said he would meet with Uisce Éireann in a bid to resolve the issue.

‘The solution is full replacement of the pipe and that is exactly what I will be pushing for,’ he promised. ‘I won’t accept anything else.’

Cork Southwest TD Michael Collins (Independent Ireland), who raised the issue in the Dáil, said: ‘The responsibility for water should be handed back to the local authorities. This is very disrespectful to the people of this area.’

Cllr Finbarr Harrington (Independent) said would be important to replace the water pipe running from the nearby river to the reservoir in Adrigole. He added: ‘It’s an old asbestos pipe and we know how harmful that is. Every time the pipe breaks, a bit of asbestos goes into the water. It’s no longer acceptable to have old asbestos pipes in the ground.’

In 2021 repair works left the area without water and UE placed an emergency water tank at Adrigole GAA.

Representatives from Uisce Éireann declined an invitation to attend last week’s public meeting in an email the action group received just before 5pm on Friday.

The water supply outages in Adrigole were also debated at the Western Division Meeting on Monday.  Cllr Caroline Cronin (FG) said: ‘Water is a basic human right and this should not be happening in 2025.’

A spokesperson for Uisce Éireann said below-average rainfall had depleted water sources in Cork causing temporary summer supply interruptions, with a Water Conservation Order in effect from July 26th to September 16th.

They added that outages were due to bursts in the water network, generally restored within hours, with no advance notice possible.

Areas like Adrigole with frequent bursts were prioritised for mains rehabilitation based on national criteria and resources.