Water restored to Ashbourne, Ratoath and Kilbride tonight

Water has been restored to all areas of Ashbourne, Ratoath and Kilbride tonight (Thursday), following major outages over the past six days.

Households and businesses across south Meath had been without water following a burst on the Staleen to Windmill Hill trunk watermain on Friday.

Many homes and businesses were without water for up to six days.

While dedicated water services crews worked throughout Friday night and all day Saturday, repairs were complex due to the pipe being over four meters deep and two sections needing to be replaced.

While repairs were completed on Saturday evening, the prolonged outage resulted in the reservoir at Windmill Hill running dry and it has taken overnight rationing until now to recover.

Irish water provided water tankers and bottled water across the affected areas during the outages.

Cllr Nick Killian said that the outages had caused huge distress to many families and to local businesses, particularly hairdressers and restaurants who were severely affected and lost a lot of business.

"I am calling on Meath County Council and Irish Water to provide some reduction in rates or water charges to help the businesses recoup their losses," he said.

Cllr Joe Bonner paid tribute to Meath County Council and the fire brigade, who sent fire tenders out to fill tanks during the crisis.

"Six days without water is unacceptable," he said. "Irish Water have to take responsibility."

Meanwhile, work continues on the pipe laying phase of East Meath’s Windmill Hill Reservoir and Trunk Watermain to Ratoath Project. This Project will increase storage capacity significantly at Windmill Hill and replace the existing watermain between the reservoir and Ratoath Village.

It involves replacing over 7km of problematic, old watermain to Ratoath that are prone to frequent bursts. These new watermain will also address low water pressure particularly in Ratoath, during periods of peak demand. The old watermain are being replaced by high density polyethylene (plastic) pipes.

A road closure is in place on the Curraha to Ratoath Road (R155) until Friday, 15th September 2023 to facilitate the works.