Residents of a Co Meath village have been left without water for several days during the hottest week of the year.
Homes and businesses in Ballivor have been affected by the outage, and St Columbanus National School closed today as a result.
In a message to parents this morning, the school said that the water tanks in the school remained empty and that the school would not open.
It said the issue was outside the control of the school.
It is understood that water supply issues also caused some disruption to the school yesterday, with parents asked to collect pupils early.
The outage is the latest in a series of problems with water supplies in the Meath area.
Aontú leader and TD for Meath West Peadar Tóibín said that estates in Ballivor had been left without water since Sunday and it was a “disgrace in the modern era”.
Mr Tóibín said that south Meath was on a “knife-edge in terms of water supply, with constant water outages for the last 10 years”.
“Its effecting families, schools and businesses. Its effecting the building of new homes for families with building projects delayed by years and added costs to builders waiting for connections,” he said.
Listen: Meath residents express frustration over lack of water
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He said that keeping water in taps should be a “baseline responsibility for Government” and called on the minister to address what he called an “ongoing crisis”.
In a statement, Uisce Éireann said, “As part of our regular investigations, an operative attended the Ballivor area earlier today and was informed that the local school had a normal water supply at that time.
“We are following up on new reports of issues this afternoon. Uisce Éireann actively follows up on all no water calls and are continuing to do so,” it added.
Uisce Éireann also said that upgrade works are planned, which will include a water storage upgrade at Ballivor.
“Our contractor will commence compound set up in the week commencing 8 June, with the main upgrade works due to begin on week commencing 22 June,” it said.
“Water mains improvement works are also being planned and, once Uisce Éireann obtains the required licence for these works to proceed, we will advise customers of the timeline,” it added.
The situation in Ballivor was raised on RTÉ’s Liveline yesterday, while discussions about water outages and issues in other parts of Co Meath and elsewhere in the country were raised on the programme today.
Clonard resident Liz Broderick voiced her frustration, saying that she and her young family is currently three days without water.
She said there have been 184 water outages in her area since March 2024 and that there was an issue with a local pumphouse failing.
Ms Broderick said residents were picking up the phone daily to alert Uisce Éireann to the problems.
“I just feel like we are not prioritised,” she said.
Niamh Halpenny from north Meath said that they recently went without water for nine days, including over the May Bank Holiday weekend.
She said that a lack of engagement and communication with Uisce Éireann was frustrating, and at one time, she was ringing them three times a day.
Gerry Devins from Skryne said that he believed these issues across the system needed to be handled at a Government level.
Mr Devins said that his area is affected by low pressure and described it as an “absolute disaster”.