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The first few weeks of a child’s life are demanding enough on parents but now one northside family has found themselves under serious stress trying to raise a newborn in a home without reliable access to clean water.
Roy and Eliza O’Driscoll welcomed their second child into their home in Gurranabraher three weeks ago and ever since they’ve almost had to plan their lives around the whims of their taps. From regular baths to sterilising bottles a lot of the upkeep around a newborn relies on access to clean water and the O’Driscolls have found themselves having to buy huge amounts of bottled water just to keep everything clean.
Photos shared with CorkBeo show a baby’s bath filled with water that looks like weak tea and with parents always just one bad nappy away from having to use it the unreliability of Leeside’s water has taken a toll on the couple. Their home in Gurranabraher was inherited by Roy who has lived there pretty much all of his life. The couple has shared the home for the last 8 years but it’s only in the last 12 months that constant dirty water has become a real issue for them.
They welcomed their first child three years ago before the water problems cropped up and the experience of raising a newborn in the home has become drastically more stressful for them – both in terms of having to plan around the sporadic bouts of clean water they get and the financial toll of having to constantly buy bottled water.
The O’Driscolls estimate they spend about €30 per week on bottled water with an average shopping trip seeing them haul home twenty-four 2L bottles and five or six 5L containers. Tallying this up over the course of a year, the couple spends an average of €1,560 just to have cleaned water – nearly double the average cost of car insurance and – according to Money Watch Ireland – just slightly under the average cost of a year’s electricity bills.
Roy works in the pharmaceutical industry while his wife Eliza works in Brown Thomas. The pair work hard for their money and despite countless calls to Irish Water the situation has not been resolved – which leaves the pair about €120 out of pocket at the end of each month.
They’ve contacted local representatives and invited them to the family home to see the problem first-hand in the hopes that continued pressure from the public will help get the issue resolved.
Roy told CorkBeo: “I am a parent to a three-year-old and a newborn, and the uncertainty of having clean water each day has become a significant stress and worry for me and my wife. With the arrival of our newborn, the need for clean water for bathing and household use has become even more critical. However, the water quality issue has made it nearly impossible for us to ensure their safety and well-being.
“Despite numerous attempts to address this issue with Irish Water, the only response we receive is that they will flush the system. However, this temporary solution has proven to be ineffective, as the problem persists and even worsens over time.
“You can clearly see the quality of water is unacceptable and you can only imagine the difficulty and distress of attempting to bathe a newborn in these conditions. It is simply unacceptable and unsustainable for our family to continue living under these circumstances.”
Last month Cork city residents held a protest outside local Uisce Éireann offices in which they demanded accountability and called to resolve the water issues once and for all. In the days before the protest, Uisce Éireann established a dedicated task force to deal with water issues on Leeside – the effectiveness of which can only be judged in the months ahead.
