Successful weekend operation delivers critical pipeline repairs

UISCE Éireann successfully completed critical repairs on a 25-kilometre trunk watermain in Saggart over the Bank Holiday weekend after months of preparation.

The national water utility carried out repairs on the Ballymore Eustace to Saggart trunk watermain over the long weekend and completed works within the planned 27-hour window.

From Friday night, more than 300 people worked to deliver the largest repair programme undertaken to date on one of Ireland’s most strategically important pieces of water infrastructure – treated water is now flowing through the pipeline following completion.

Uisce Éireann Programme Manager Nicola Butler stated that the weekend’s work had taken “months of planning” to deliver.

The programme manager said: “This was a significant undertaking involving months of planning and coordination, with hundreds of people working around the clock to complete the repairs.

“We would like to thank everyone for their support throughout this operation and for their continued efforts to conserve water, particularly local communities and landowners whose cooperation helped make these works possible.”

The piece of infrastructure delivers approximately 220 million litres of treated drinking water every day to homes, businesses, hospitals, schools and essential services, with homes in Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow all reliant on it.

Works that took place included the repair of 15 leaks, including five large leaks and the replacement of a damaged section of watermain. The repairs took place at a time when a sixweek hosepipe ban is in place, due to expire at 11.59pm on Wednesday, August 26.

Previous repair works completed on the pipeline in 2024 and 2025 have saved approximately 1.5 million litres of water every day.