Uisce Eireann accused of washing its hands of Trim sewage problems

Recent issues with raw sewage coming up in the middle of the town were raised by Cllr Ronan Moore at the January meeting of Trim Municipal District Councillors.

He said this raw sewage was going into the drains and ending up in the river which had serious environmental impact but that it also causes problems for businesses and shoppers.

“This has been happening since mid December. Property owners have been in touch with Uisce Eireann to be told it is their issue - that it was on their property and it was their problem.

“A number of properties did their own thorough research and were told that their own properties were fine and it was external. It is Uisce Eireann”.

“We are trying to promote shopping in the town. We don't need this in our town to be causing issues for businesses and also creating an environment that people may not find very nice.”

He asked that the council write to Uisce Eireann to ask for an explanation about what had caused it and also the severe water outages in the north of the town over Christmas and if they have been resolved and what they have done to resolve them.

Cllr Fox supported Cllr Moore and said the sewerage issue had been going on for a month. He felt the main issue was that in some cases public sewers were in the back of properties and this was the case in some older housing estates and had been common practice up to the nineties.

“Now Uisce Eireann are saying its private property and we can't do that. They seem to be washing their hands of it,” said Cllr Fox adding that it was anomaly that doesn't seem to have been flagged at the time that responsibility was being passed from the council to Irish Water. “They are public sewers going through private property and they have an obligation to fix them, “ he said.