Same levels of water lost despite €1bn spend

WATER:THERE HAS been little, if any, improvement in the level of water lost as a result of leakages and other factors despite a €1 billion State investment in supply and conservation measures over the last decade or so, the Comptroller and Auditor General's report found.

The report says that the cost of unaccounted for water – the difference between the volume of water delivered into a network and the amount of consumption – is considerable for local authorities but it is not possible to provide an up-to-date estimate.

However, the report says the level of unaccounted for water in Ireland – which it maintains arises from factors such as leakage, poor service connections and metering errors – appears to be twice the OECD average of 20 per cent.

“While some caution needs to be applied in interpreting the results of a limited examination of water leakage carried out over 15 years ago, present-day losses may be, in many local authorities, as high as those found in the mid-1990s notwithstanding an investment of more than €1 billion in water supply and conservation in the last 10 years.”

“In the light of the potential cost of unaccounted for water, it is necessary that the factors that give rise to unaccounted for water be reviewed and strategies and operational programmes to address the underlying issues contributing to the problem being re-evaluated.”

The report says that overall the average percentage of unaccounted for water was approximately 41.48 per cent in 2009 which represented a marginal increase over the 2008 figure of 41.2 per cent.

It says that some 17 of the 34 local authorities saw an improvement in 2009 – the most noticeable being the 27 per cent reduction in the percentage of water lost in Monaghan. The other 17 local authorities reported a disimprovement for 2009, with Limerick County Council reporting losses of 35 per cent, up from 17 per cent in 2008.