A nationwide hosepipe ban has come into effect today and will remain in place until 26 August.<\/p>\n
The Water Conservation Order, which was introduced last week for the Greater Dublin Area and parts of Wexford, Wicklow, Meath, Kildare and south Tipperary, applies across the country from today.<\/p>\n
It comes as Ireland’s prolonged spell of hot, dry weather continues to put drinking water supplies under pressure.<\/p>\n
The order applies to all households and prohibits the use of hosepipes for activities such as washing cars, watering gardens and filling paddling pools.<\/p>\n
The recent spell of hot weather, combined with well-below average rainfall, has led to exceptionally high water demand, placing increasing pressure on both raw water sources and treated drinking water supplies.<\/p>\n
Uisce \u00c9ireann said the restrictions are necessary to ensure there is sufficient water for homes, businesses, farms, hospitals, vulnerable customers and other essential services in the weeks ahead.<\/p>\n
In addition to the hosepipe ban, the utility is urging people across the country to use only the water they need and avoid unnecessary water use until conditions improve.<\/p>\n
It has highlighted a range of simple water-saving measures, including taking shorter showers, fixing leaking taps and toilets, and avoiding the use of hosepipes and garden sprinklers.<\/p>\n
According to Uisce \u00c9ireann, using a garden hose or sprinkler for just one hour can consume more water than the average family uses in an entire day.<\/p>\n
Uisce \u00c9ireann said the prolonged warm and dry conditions have left several groundwater sources under increasing stress, with reduced yields – or, in some cases, no yield at all – being recorded.<\/p>\n
In some areas, including parts of the Greater Dublin Area and popular coastal visitor destinations, demand for water continues to place supplies under pressure, frequently exceeding local production capacity.<\/p>\n
Nighttime water restrictions are also currently in place on 53 of the country’s approximately 700 public water supplies, mainly in areas where local sources remain under severe pressure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A nationwide hosepipe ban has come into effect today and will remain in place until 26 August. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-565738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}