Uisce Éireann apologises after major water outage impacts North Inishowen

Uisce Éireann has apologised after a major fault left thousands of homes and businesses across North Inishowen without water for a number of days.

A burst to a water mains supplying the Malin area occurred on Tuesday afternoon, June 24, and a small number of customers are still without water.

Areas affected by the burst included Carndonagh, Malin, Malin Head, Glengad, Umgall, Gleneely, and surrounding areas.

Uisce Éireann said the fault proved more difficult to repair than had been initially anticipated.

“The resulting outage caused significant air locking in the network, which in turn takes time to fully resolve,” a spokesperson explained.

“The burst repair on the trunk mains was difficult to repair and took crews longer than expected to resolve the matter,” they added.

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Damien O’Sullivan, Water Network Operations Manager, Uisce Éireann, apologised for the unplanned disruption.

“We understand the inconvenience when a large burst of this nature occurs, and our crews worked as quickly as they could to remedy this unplanned outage. We thank the community for their understanding.”

Water supply was restored to most customers by Thursday evening, the State utility confirmed. However, it's understood some homes in the Malin Head area continue to be impacted.

Meanwhile, Uisce Éireann says it’s committed to keeping customers informed about issues with the water network across multiple platforms 24/7.

“We encourage customers to engage with us through our website, X channels @IWCare and @IrishWater, on Facebook and LinkedIn, and through our customer care helpline, which is open 24/7 on 1800 278 278,” they said.