3,000 homes in city could have lead pipework

No assessment has yet been made of how many lead pipes still exist in Galway City homes – however, council officials once estimated that up to 3,000 properties could be serviced by lead connections.

Irish Water this week confirmed that it was writing to 84 households in County Galway to inform them they could have lead pipes supplying their water after identifying the potentially dangerous metal connections while installing domestic meters.

Yesterday, a spokeswoman for Irish Water stated that none of those homeowners were living in the city as the public utility had yet to roll out its metering programme here. Estates in Knocknacarra are currently seeing workers begin the process.

“We haven’t started metering in the city yet, so don’t have any indicators to the possibility of lead so far,” she pointed out.

“Irish Water can confirm that it has identified, through its domestic metering programme to date, approximately 26,000 homes nationwide with a possible lead pipe connection. As per metering information gathered to date Irish Water will be writing to 84 identified houses in [County] Galway to make them aware of the issue and provide them with a number of measures which they can take to eliminate or limit the amount of lead in their drinking water.”

“This figure will rise as Irish Water continues to install meters. This is an indicator that the internal plumbing and pipes in these properties could also be made of lead. This could result in the presence of lead in the drinking water.”

Environment Minister Alan Kelly promised grants of up to €4,000 for low income households to replace the lead water pipes, which were standard building material until the 1970s.

For more on this story, see this week’s Galway City Tribune