{"id":631525,"date":"2026-09-21T15:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T15:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/631525\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T15:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T15:38:09","slug":"leinster-residents-twice-as-likely-to-complain-about-alleged-hosepipe-ban-breaches-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/631525\/","title":{"rendered":"Leinster residents twice as likely to complain about alleged hosepipe ban breaches \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

People in Leinster were almost twice as likely to report their neighbours for washing cars, watering gardens and filling swimming pools during the recent hosepipe ban than their counterparts in the State\u2019s other three provinces.<\/p>\n

The ban, officially called a water conservation order, was put in place in July as water supplies came under pressure due to a prolonged period of warm and dry weather<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Homeowners were told they could report neighbours or anyone they believed to be in breach of the order to Uisce \u00c9ireann<\/a>\u2019s customer care team.<\/p>\n

During the period of nationwide water restrictions, calls from Leinster came in at around three times the rate as from Ulster (Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal), according to figures provided by Uisce \u00c9ireann following a Freedom of Information request.<\/p>\n

There were 7.5 complaints per 100,000 people in Leinster during the five-week period in which the nationwide ban was in place. This compared to a rate of 4.6 per 100,000 in Munster, 3.1 in Connacht and 2.6 in the three Ulster counties. <\/p>\n

Complaint rates were likely to be higher in built-up areas where more homes overlook each other.<\/p>\n

Uisce \u00c9ireann said there were 439 complaints across the full period in which the ban was in effect. Of these, 10 related to the filling of swimming pools and 85 to people washing their cars. There were 81 complaints regarding people hosing down driveways and 126 about the watering of plants and gardens.<\/p>\n

A total of 77 contacts were made to Uisce \u00c9ireann about \u201ccommercial\u201d water use, though no further detail was provided on what that entailed. Sixty complaints were listed as involving \u201cno specifics\u201d. <\/p>\n

The order applied to domestic users only, with commercial operations such as car washes not falling within its scope.<\/p>\n

The figures also showed that the busiest times for complaints were in the earlier part of the restrictions, with 106 reports, nearly a quarter of the overall total, made between July 16th and 22nd. <\/p>\n

Asked about the records, Uisce \u00c9ireann said all restrictions had now been lifted due to an increase in rainfall and the \u201cextraordinary efforts\u201d made by people across the country to conserve water.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Hosepipe ban lifted with \u2018immediate effect\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cThese efforts helped to protect local water supplies during one of the hottest summers and driest July on record,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, the volume of contacts relating to breaches of the water conservation order represented a small portion of overall contacts to our customer care team \u2013 less than 1 per cent of total contact volume.\u201d<\/p>\n

More broadly, Uisce \u00c9ireann said most contacts involved people asking for advice on what was and was not allowed or reporting leaks. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur experience is that when people understand the reasons for restrictions, they respond positively and reduce non-essential water use.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People in Leinster were almost twice as likely to report their neighbours for washing cars, watering gardens and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82,776,15950],"class_list":["post-631525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-uisce-eireann","tag-weather-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631525","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=631525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}