McNamee urges NI Water to have better emergency plans in place for next cold period

Alliance Belfast Councillor Laura McNamee has called on the NI Water to have better emergency plans in place for the next cold snap following their poor handling of the water crisis over the Christmas period.

Cllr Laura McNamee said: “I had many elderly residents contact me when they had water disconnected desperate for information about what was happening. NI Water were not attempting to give any information to people as to when they were going to get their water back. They did very little to provide for the vulnerable who were affected by this crisis. It was actually left to Councils to step in and carry out the role that this Government agency was failing to carry out

“If we see another cold period this winter that results in the loss of water then residents must be given clear and concise information about what is happening and when their water supply will be restored, either temporarily or permanently. Updating a website or putting information in a daily newspaper is not that hard, but there was no attempt to do either in the first few days.

“It even appears that NI Water themselves did not know how to handle this crisis as they misunderstood how much help they could get from a national organisation that provides support during water crises. This showed an extremely poor level of management, these problems must be rectified.

“There needs to be an urgent inquiry into what went wrong both in terms of people losing water but also what went wrong in NI Water.”

ENDS

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