DUBLIN:WATER RESTRICTIONS in Dublin city centre will be lifted tonight for the New Year's Eve celebrations but householders still face a further 10 days of diminished supply.
Dublin City Council will lift restrictions this afternoon from 2pm until 4pm tomorrow - a total of 26 hours.
However, restrictions will resume after that until midday on Sunday and there will only be a six-hour respite before a further 18 hours of restrictions are imposed on Sunday evening.
Dublin City Council chief engineer Michael Phillips said they would continue to monitor water restrictions after the major return to work next Tuesday and for the following week until the schools returned on January 10th.
He said that if a large number of broken water mains were found, the council may make a decision to put more water into storage in order to cope with possible shortages.
At a press conference yesterday at the Department of the Environment, Mr Phillips said the public had learned from the big freeze last January and went into conservation mode when water restrictions were first imposed, instead of hoarding water in anticipation of being cut off.
Supplies had outstripped demand on Wednesday night in Dublin city for the first time, he pointed out. "We have turned the corner and hopefully it will remain that way."
Joe Crockett from the City and County Managers Association said he expected water services to be back to normal in most parts of the country by this evening, with the exception of some parts of Galway and Mayo.
"I don't forsee any difficulties [ for New Year's Eve]," he said.
Minister for the Environment John Gormley predicted that water services would be restored outside Dublin within 48 hours.
He said local authorities had done all they could to cope with the "unprecedented" thaw which had caused so many pipes to burst, with temperatures having varied by more than 20 degrees in the space of a couple of days.
"The huge variation in temperatures is the real reason for the problems with our water supplies," he said.
"No matter how much money you invest, when you deal with this surprise weather it is very difficult."
Mr Gormley said money would "not be a problem" when dealing with burst water mains, and the department had allocated €320 million for the upgrade of the mains network.
Contingencies had been put in place before Christmas when Met Éireann first forecast a significant thaw, particularly in relation to demand management, to conserve supplies.
"Our state of preparedness contrasts with what happened across the Border," he added.
He also defended his own decision not to make any public statement until yesterday, saying information for the public had been provided sufficiently by officials in his own department in relation to the thaw and the problems of ice and snow.
"I wasn't there going out clearing the roads. That is not the role of the Minister," he said.
