A MEMBER of Clare County Council has described as “deplorable and shocking” the treatment of public representatives by Irish Water at a recent briefing. 

Councillor Pat Hayes was sharply critical of the utility following the online event last Monday (February 14) for members of the authority.

He said that while Irish Water had originally committed to an in-person briefing, with members of the media present, the utility appeared to have had a “change of heart”.

“We had a commitment for a briefing before one of the monthly meetings, at which media could attend, on issues including waste water treatment, network leakage and the extraction of water from the Shannon,” the Fianna Fáil member outlined.

“There was a change of heart somewhere along the line and it became an in-camera meeting. Then, it was decided to hold it on Zoom. Because councillors were travelling to Ennis for the monthly meeting, we ended up dotted around the headquarters, some having to use their phones, trying to listen to an hour-long briefing. Question time only started at 3.30pm and we had the Council meeting at 4pm. It was very unsatisfactory and councillors were treated in a deplorable and shocking way.”

In response to a query from The Champion, Irish Water said it is “reviewing all feedback from the meeting with Clare County Council earlier this week”.

“Our team is committed to meeting with the Councillors again and we will be contacting Clare County Council to schedule this,” a spokesperson added. 

Councillor Hayes described himself as “quite irate in the end”, at the nature of Monday’s proceedings.

“I was the last to ask a question and I wanted to know why the meeting wasn’t in-person and why the media weren’t allowed to attend,” he said.

“Eventually an Irish Water representative intervened to say they would come to meet us in person. The thing is that the consultation of the water extraction plan ends in March. It’s not good enough that we were left with 15 minutes for questions and a month to go to the deadline. That’s no way to consult councillors and council officials.

“The bottom line is that the whole briefing kind of broke down and felt very disjointed. Irish Water had control of the meeting and we couldn’t even record it. We received a handout which was different to what we were seeing on screen. I’d be concerned that Irish Water are going to walk away and say that they fully consulted Clare County Council.”

Councillor Hayes also voiced his reservations about the Eastern and Midlands Region Water Supply Project, which proposes to extract millions of litres of water daily from The Shannon at the Parteen Basin.

“Clare was never in this region before and now it’s only because it seems to suit others,” he said.

“Now we’re being told the water is going to serve Navan and Carlow and elsewhere. It might be a good idea to reduce all of the leakage in the network first and that would help to address the water supply issues.”

In respect of Monday’s briefing, Irish Water outlined that it arranged the online event as part of the consultation on the Regional Water Resources Plan for the East and Midlands Region.

“Irish Water is providing briefings and webinars to stakeholders, including the Local Authorities, as part of the ongoing statutory public consultation on the Regional Water Resources Plan for the Eastern and Midlands Region,” a spokesperson said.

“This is our second statutory consultation as part of the overall National Water Resources Plan and will be followed by three more statutory consultations on the remaining plans for the rest of the country (the other three regions) in the coming months.

“Public webinars are also ongoing at this time and two evening webinars have been added to the schedule over the next fortnight. There is a designated project email address and any project-related queries can be sent to the team at nwrp@water.ie.

“In addition, Irish Water will be engaging in a further round of non-statutory public consultation on the Water Supply Project following the adoption of the Regional Water Resources Plan for the Eastern and Midlands Region and will provide further briefings in person to all stakeholders including elected representatives, as part of this process.”

Irish Water added that it holds regular ‘Councillor Clinics’ where local representatives can ask questions directly of utility officials.