An appeal has been made for people in the greater Dublin area to conserve water this weekend ahead of “critical and complex” repair works.
A pipeline supplying one third of the region’s drinking water is at risk of failure and will be turned off for 28 hours from 23:00 local time on Friday to enable complex repairs to take place.
Just under a thousand customers in County Kildare and south Dublin will “definitely” experience an interruption to their supply with alternative arrangements in place.
An Uisce Éireann (Water Ireland) spokesperson said: “We are appealing to everyone to act together and only use water for essential needs.”
Some people may experience interruptions to their water supply including low pressure, discoloured water, or water outages.
The works scheduled for the weekend will repair a major pipeline that connects Ballymore Eustace Water Treatment Plant with the Saggart Reservoir, both south west of the city.
Engineers are scheduled to “work through the day and night” to maintain the water supply as there is 28 hours’ storage to supply customers in the area.
Declan Healy of Uisce Éireann said specialist teams would repair five active leaks and replace 35 metres of pipeline.
The major pipeline supplies one third of the Greater Dublin’s drinking water and will be turned off to facilitate these repairs.
The customers in Kill, Arthurstown, Rathmore, Athgoe and Tipperkevin who are expected to be directly impacted will be able to access alternative water supplies set up at Rathmore National School and Kill Equestrian Centre.
Those who use this supply have been advised to boil the water before drinking it.
