Our house was a disaster over Christmas. We had had no water pressure since the 23rd of December and put it down to either frozen pipes inside my house, or more likely a drop in mains pressure owing to the common practice of home and business-owners opening their taps up during a cold-snap in order to prevent their water pipes from freezing. Thats all very well, but multiply that by every house and business and farm in the west of Ireland and you soon realise that water, while plentiful in Galway this year, what with the floods and all in October and November, will pretty soon become a scarce commodity if everyone is letting our potable water run off into the drains, just to stop it freezing!
My wife worked over Christmas in the hospital and had nowhere to shower or wash, or clean uniforms etc. My two teenage daughters fled the roost shortly after Christmas day, declaring our house 'The Pits' and my son and I, well we had stuiff to do, like hefting 35 x 5 liter bottles of water each day up to the attic and filling our water tank. At least we worked up an appetite for the left-over Turkey!
As it turned out many areas around Galway have had similar water problems all over Christmas and the New Year and no doubt many more will suffer similarly, after the thaw, when leaks and burst pipes will re-open and many families like ours, will have had to shower and otherwise cope with pails of water drawn from relatives or neighbors houses. It re-affirms my belief that water is the next big commodity in the world and investment in infrastructure, particularly in water systems is of paramount importance for Ireland as quality and renewable supplies of potable water becomes a more and more scarce resource.
I didn't see any county engineers or managers in their expensed cars running around making sure essential services were maintained over the holiday period. Similarly, no one made announcements on Galway Bay FM or in the local papers. No special notices were posted on the Galway county and city councils websites or answering machines! And I know they were not manning their department desks because I had called every number I could get my hands on from 26th December to the 30th, seeking some re-assurance on my water supply's restoration. I even phoned the police and fire service, wondering if they had numbers that might lead to someone on duty over Christmas, all to no avail.
In the end, I phoned the County Council Water Dept on the 30th, when they re-opened after the holidays and the lady who answered helpfully told me that her family in Moycullen also had no water since Stephen's day! Misery indeed does love company! Anyway, she promised to let the Spiddal work crew know and sure enough on the evening of the 31st, a very busy, Mickey Faherty showed up with his rather intrigueing 'listening device'. In fairness to him, in no time at all he had verified that it was a mains problem (not frozen pipes in my house, which I would have believed) and he called his work crew, who were finishing off another leak in the locality. They arrived and within one hour had fixed the problem and restored water to us.
So, spare a thought for these 4 men from Galway County Council, and indeed the many other teams from the fire departments and the city and county councils have been working non-stop, in terribly cold conditions over the past week, to ensure a happy Christmas for those of us suffering from a water shortage this winter. They are the €10 per hour workers keeping the front line services open. These are the same workers who just had their wages cut twice last year by the government Budgets.
Thanks again guys and I hope you all enjoyed a Happy New Year, at home with your families.
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