Irish Water has confirmed additional measures to protect the water supply in the greater Dublin area, after 615 million litres were used in the last 24 hours.

The country’s water supply is working ‘on a knife-edge’ amid a 32C heatwave, which is showing no signs of letting up.

Irish Water has now lowered night-time water pressure levels across the capital in a bid to preserve water.

Irish Water can sustainably produce 610 million litres of water per day in Dublin, however demand has surged to 615 million since Wednesday.

Nationally, Irish Water has identified 100 water supply schemes that are now at risk.

A total of 4,000 customers in Kilkenny, Longford, Athlone, North Galway, Louth and Kerry are experiencing restricted water supply and outages in some cases.

Areas in Cork, Wicklow, Limerick, Kilkenny, Carlow, Tipperary, Clare, Mayo, Sligo, Donegal, Galway, Roscommon, Laois, Limerick, Kerry, Waterford and Offaly are also at risk.

Speaking on RTE‘s Morning Ireland, Irish Water spokesman Eamon Gallen said that around 10,000 customers are affected by water restrictions, with 7,000 of them in Co Kilkenny.

Blaming the water network, especially in Dublin, for the looming crisis, he said the system is ‘not resilient enough to stand up to extreme conditions, either freezing or sunny’.



‘Right now we’re using July’s water supply in June and that’s not sustainable,’ he said as it emerged the amount of water in storage to serve the Greater Dublin Area is 20 per cent below target.

In order to allow water levels to recover at the Wolfhill Reservoir in Co. Laois, water restrictions will be in place for customers in The Swan, Wolfhill, Mayo & Doonane tonight and tomorrow night. See https://t.co/RsjWFb8hzo for more. #ConserveWater #irishWater — Irish Water (@IrishWater) June 28, 2018

Restrictions were put in place in Longford yesterday at 10.30pm until Monday morning at 7am, with more to follow while the country’s scorcher is in full swing.

Some areas in Athlone, Longford and north Dublin have already experienced water shortages and areas in Donegal, Galway, Limerick and Mullingar are at risk of outages and restrictions.

There was particular concern in Co Longford, where water restrictions were put in place in some areas.

There is currently only 160 days of water is available for extraction from the Poulaphouca Reservoir in Co Wicklow, which provides a significant portion of water for counties Dublin, Wicklow, Kildare and Meath, for over 1.8 million people, but there should be 200 days available at this time of year.

While demand has stabilised in the Greater Dublin Area, Irish Water said that it is still ‘critically high’ and putting enormous pressure on the system.

Meanwhile, farmers are worried they will not be able to save enough fodder for next winter as they try to catch up with the wet spring this year.

Chairperson of ICMSA’s Farm & Rural Affairs Committee, Denis Drennan, also said a cow needs 120 litres per day and it has to be available or the animals become distressed.

He expressed his astonishment that after eight months of continuous rain and barely six weeks of dry weather that communities were now being told that there’s a water shortage.

Mr Drennan said the situation did not speak well for our water reservoir infrastructure or water management systems.

Irish Water are urging people to conserve water usage wherever possible, by taking measure such as not using hoses or washing cars, to keep family pools very shallow, take shorter showers instead of baths.

Restrictions will become unavoidable if the dry conditions persist into the Autumn with lower than normal rainfalls, Irish Water has warned.

Motorists are being warned to take care as the roads are melting in the soaring heat — with road temperatures hitting 44 C in places.

A red fire warning has been issued for across the country, while a yellow high temperature warning remains in place.