Water Investment Programmes

As the average household consumes 720 litres of water per day (Source: South Dublin City Council) it is inevitable that significant water losses are incurred.

These problems were indicated in a recent statement from John Gormley who stated that national water losses range from 16.8% to 58.6% (Source: Department of the Environment, January 2010).

Over the last seven years the government spent €140 million for the purposes of water conservation. The scope of the water conservation programme is to implement appropriate water management systems to monitor water consumption and to identify the occurrence of losses throughout the supply networks (Source: John Gormley, January 2010).

At present, most counties have completed or are close to completing the initial phases of this programme and therefore the priority of the next water services investment programme will be the rehabilitation and replacement of water mains systems. In recognition of this, the government has announced that investment in replacing water mains will increase to €300 million over the next three years.  Specific details about this revised programme will be outlined in February 2010 (Source: Department of the Environment, January 2010).