Council asks Uisce Éireann to compensate Tipperary firms for losses due to water outages
Motion tabled by Sinn Féin councillors was unanimously passed at latest meeting of Tipperary County Council
Tipperary County Council has written to Uisce Éirean requesting it compensate businesses in the county that are losing significant revenue because of water outages due to no fault of their own.
A motion calling on the Council to make this request was unanimously passed at Tipperary County Council’s February meeting where its proposers outlined how water outages have forced businesses in their communities dependent on water supply to close temporarily.
The motion was tabled by the Council’s two Sinn Féin representatives Cllrs David Dunne from Carrick-on-Suir and Annemarie Ryan from Tipperary Town.
Cllr Dunne told the meeting a number of businesses in his area had to reduce their opening hours during the recent snow and storm weather crises because of water outages.
One of those was the Dove Hill Design Centre near Carrick-on-Suir where 15 staff were laid off temporarily because its restaurant and café had to close due to a water outage.
The centre had to eventually get in a 20,000 litres water tank costing €1,000 every few days to ensure it had a water supply.
The customer footfall to the centre fell 70% during the water supply outage.
“No business can sustain that amount of loss. If Irish Water can’t provide them with a full drinking water supply then they should be compensated, in my opinion,” he said.
Cllr Ryan highlighted cases of water supply problems in her town that were not due to extreme weather events but regular issues with the network.
She said one restaurant in the town located on the end of a line regularly experienced very low water pressure or no water at all and had lost thousands of euros because of this.
She said there were hairdressers, barbers and veterinary surgeons, who were all reliant on having a water supply also suffering and having to send staff home from work due to these issues with their water supply.
“This is having a really difficult negative effect on small businesses. I am glad this motion is going forward and hopefully we will get a decent response,” she added.