NI water crisis to last ‘into next week’
A lack of investment in Northern Ireland’s water network has been blamed for the shortage crisis, which will affect around 34,000 homes on Thursday and is now expected to continue into next week.
Officials from NI Water – the agency in charge of the region’s supplies – said 18,000 homes in the city are still running dry, with a further 5,000 in the east of Northern Ireland and eight to nine thousand in the west still affected.
Trevor Haslett from the company said the region’s aging water pipes are the reason why it has been hit harder that other parts of the UK.
“Although we have invested over the past three years around £150m in our water mains, that is still only replacing 1% of the system,” Mr Haslett, Director of Engineering, said.
“In other areas of the UK including Scotland it’s 1.9%, so just about half of our pipes are being renewed in comparison to the rest of the UK. And they’ve been doing that for the past 20 years.”
When asked if he plans to resign over the affair, Chief Executive Laurence MacKenzie, who issued an apology on Wednesday, said he is only focussing on getting homes back on supply.
“My focus at the minute is getting through this situation and that is what my focus will remain on,” Mr MacKenzie said. “I believe I am doing the best I can do to keep the team together.”
An emergency meeting of the Executive is to be held at Stormont Castle on Thursday to discuss the problem, after Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said citizens have been “badly let down” by how it has been handled, and called it a “grave crisis within NI Water”.
160,000 litres of bottled water, sent from the Scottish Government to provide relief, is being distributed across the country.
Ulster Unionist leader Tom Elliot says answers must be found to “two simple questions“.
“Today the Executive meets in response to the Water Crisis,” Mr Elliot said. “They must address two questions: why has Northern Ireland Water not been up to the job of providing an emergency service, and why has Northern Ireland Water’s communications with the public been a ridiculous mess?”
Thawing conditions following the severe cold spell were initially linked to the bursts but now attention is turning to the history of under-investment in the water pipes.
NI Water has been engaged in an extensive programme of capital works but the entire government at Stormont faces spending cuts.
Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson has pledged the coalition’s support but the issue of domestic water charging, opposed by most of the local parties, could be revisited.
Environment minister Edwin Poots said there had been a £3bn investment project in recent years but the problem was a “historic issue”.
But, he said, Northern Ireland Water and not the Government was to blame.
