Three weeks, no water, furious Buncrana man slams Uisce Éireann

A Buncrana man has blasted “incompetent” Uisce Éireann after his family was left without proper water for three weeks, while clean water flowed straight through the town to Letterkenny.

Liam Fullerton, 59, a cousin of the late Eddie Fullerton, says it’s very “frustrating that water from the Eddie Fullerton Dam built for the people of Inishowen” is being sent up the road while homes in Buncrana run dry, including his own.

“We couldn’t wash. We couldn’t flush the toilet. I have two sons, a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old. It was a disaster for them. They were trying to get washed over the weekend with a saucepan of water. That was for three weekends,” Liam said. “I was carrying buckets from a well up the road and going to my sister’s for a shower. We didn't do much for a few weeks. We couldn't do anything.”

The crisis began after Christmas for the Fullerton family when a burst pipe in Drumfries drained local reservoirs. Liam’s home in Gortyarrigan sits at one of the highest points near Aughaweel. Due to this, he says he is always the first to lose supply and the last to get it back.

“It takes any disturbance or burst pipes, and it knocks me out completely.  I had three weeks of no water,” he said. “In fairness, one of the councilmen came out and tested my pressure, and there was a little bit of water down at the bottom of the garden, but it wasn't enough pressure to go up to the ceiling.”

Although supply has since returned, Liam doesn't hold out much hope that he won't face further outages down the line, and he didn’t hold back when it came to Uisce Éireann after waiting over a week for a response when he reported the issue three times to the company formerly known as Irish Water. 

“When you ring them, you’re put through to something like a call centre, and they don’t even know where Buncrana is. You’re trying to explain what’s happening, and they haven’t a clue. It’s a waste of time.”

The frequent water outages in Inishowen were also raised at the recent monthly meeting of Donegal County Council by South Inishowen Councillor Jack Murray.

Alluding to a picture of Eddie Fullerton on the wall of the council chamber after whom the dam is named, Cllr Murray said the former councillor would be “extremely angry to see water from that dam that he fought so long for running through Buncrana on its way to Letterkenny while the town itself was left short.”

“Eddie sat in this chamber for 12 years, and his great legacy is the Eddie Fullerton Dam in the Illies,” he said. During the boil water notice issued at the start of the year for Buncrana, “Eddie's own wife, was drinking bottled water for a week, while there was a water mains just literally, I'd say, 10 yards from her front door, and clean water was running through it, making its way the whole way to Letterkenny, and not supplying the town.”

“That makes no sense. I've been advised that just 10% of the water coming from the Eddie Fullerton Dam is enough to keep Buncrana going. So we have to have a backup plan, If the Slavery plant fails,” the Sinn Féin Councillor said.

Liam agrees with Councillor Murray. “He’d be angry,” he said of his late cousin. “That dam was for the people of Inishowen, Buncrana, and the surrounding areas. My father and other local men protested at the beginning when they were sending the water to Letterkenny. Buncrana Town Council told the people that there would be no shortage of water for Buncrana. Now, that's not the truth.”

Mr. Fullerton insists Letterkenny needs its own dedicated water source. “There has to be an alternative dam or source for Letterkenny. That water is for the people of Inishowen. Keep it in Inishowen. There’s no use taking it 50 miles up the road when the people living beside the dam are short of water.”

Liam also claims the wider infrastructure is failing. He says water is being pumped from Dubh-Loch to the Slavery treatment plant and then pumped back again in a circular system that leaves the water dizzy,” he said. “It’s being pumped around in circles. There’s as much going out as coming in.”

With Buncrana’s population growing fast, he fears the situation will only get worse. “We’re bringing more people into the town, but we don’t have the water supply. Any big factory thinking of coming here wouldn’t do it. It would be pointless.”

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Liam believes it was an error to privatise the water utility and remove it from the local authority remit. “The water shouldn't have been privatised. It was a better service before because when we phoned the local workers, they were very good, and they fixed the water quickly, and they knew what we were talking about, and they knew the area, instead of waiting three weeks,” the frustrated Buncrana father said.