Updated at 10.40pm
IRISH WATER HAS said that it has scaled back substantially on water restrictions to homes and businesses over the weekend.
The utility said that restrictions will remain in place over Friday and Saturday from 8pm to 6am.
However, the utility said that the restrictions would be done in such a way that “the vast majority of homes and businesses see little or no impact on their water supply”.
“In general, restrictions will only apply to those areas where the system has been set up to support the increased output of water from our Ballymore Eustace water treatment plant,” the utility said.
It said that Dublin’s north inner city, parts of Dublin 8, South Circular Road, Lower Drumcondra and areas in Crumlin and Walkinstown will all be affected.
Earlier
The water company has said that 12,750 customers across the country remain without water supply and a further 27,484 customers have a restricted supply, following last week’s Storm Emma.
Another 12,618 customers are on boil water notices across nine counties.
Restrictions remain in place in areas of Dublin City, South County Dublin, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown, East Meath, Athlone and Leitrim.
The greater Dublin area has been particularly hit with restrictions and Irish Water has said today it is working with local authorities who are making progress in finding and fixing leaks on the public network.
On Monday, Irish Water had a 60 million litre deficit on the volume of water being produced at its plants versus the demand from customers across the region.
It said that the demand for water needed by homes and businesses has stabilised over the past two days. This stabilisation, Irish Water said, indicates that people running taps and broken pipes in homes and businesses appears to have significantly reduced.
However, Irish Water noted the demand of 589 million litres per day across the region remains high despite the impacts of restrictions being applied.
Irish Water said its strategy to maintain its efforts to reduce leakage will continue and the company will continue to maximise production at its plants subject to any unforeseen failures.
“The decision to restrict water was made to support business and the city’s economy and to avoid widespread water outages during core business hours,” general manager of Irish Water, Eamon Gallen said.
We are extremely conscious of the hardship that supply restrictions impose on people and businesses across the region and we continue to look at how we can carry out restrictions in a way that minimises impact and avoids concentrating them in individual areas.
Gallen said that Irish Water is now considering how it can “further reduce restrictions over the weekend when the impact of restrictions can have an even greater impact on social and commercial life”.
Irish Water is continuing to ask the public to be mindful of water usage and to conserve water where possible. It has provided detailed advice on how to conserve water on its website here.
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