Councils flooded by complaints over water shortages

Some 1,100 residents in Dublin city have made written complaints to Dublin City Council, by email and post, since January 5.

Around 13,000 calls were also received about the water crisis.

These were made up of both complaints and queries.

"Some 18,000 calls were received last week by our Customer Services Department. Approximately 13,000 of these calls were in relation to water queries," a council spokeswoman said.

"We don't break down how many of these calls were complaints and how many were calls looking for information on water, tanker locations, etc. They were a mixture of complaints and calls looking for general information on water," she said.

Crisis

Staff in Dublin County Council are sending out acknowledgements of receipt of the complaints to customers, and the complaints are being forwarded to the relevant department.

"A response is issued to the customer then within four weeks of initial receipt," the spokeswoman added.

Several Dublin communities such as Cabra, Killester, Finglas, Rathmines, Rathgar, and Terenure have been without water during the crisis, caused by the cold snap.

Meanwhile, South Dublin County Council received almost 25,000 calls in the period up until January 16, which almost quadrupled the amount of calls received for the same period last year.

Staff at Fingal County Council answered over 10,000 calls. A council spokesperson said: "We transferred additional staff to our Water Services Department at very short notice to deal with the increased volume of calls."

hnews@herald.ie