The DSPCA ran out of water today after a pump station failure.
And they claimed this afternoon that they had no proper update from Irish Water. Staff at the animal shelter on the Mount Venus Road in Rathfarnham reported the incident early this morning and requested the presence of a water truck to help.
But they have now used up their water supply for the day. A notice has since appeared on the Irish Water website that work is ongoing until 6pm at the pump and service will be restored this evening, but if there are any further issues the shelter will struggle to care for animals.
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Gillian Bird from the DSPCA spoke to Joe Duffy on RTE's Liveline earlier today and said that the bigger issue is that they have to carry out a strict cleaning schedule each day. She said: "We've no water, basically. I was just on the Irish Water website and it's popped up to say there's a pump station interruption.
"We've used all that we have here. So we've got around nearly 300 animals on site plus the animals in the veterinary clinic. We've got enough water just about for them to drink today.
"Hoping that the water is actually going to return. It's making it difficult for us to anything - like cleaning. The kennels, the surgery and even the poor staff aren't getting their teas or coffees or toilet.
"We weren't told this was coming and we reported it this morning first thing. We ordered a water truck to come up and provide water for us, we were basically - nobody had been in touch with us since - but I noticed after we went to social media it's now been put up on Irish Water website to say that there is an interruption to the service."
Joe shared his surprise that you can order a water truck from the Irish Water services, but Gillian said they had had no update on this. The shelter cares for animals such as horses, dogs, cats, rabbits, tortoises, and even some wild animals, all of whom require varying levels of water.
Gillian continued: "A horse will drink between 25 and 30 litres a day. And we're lucky it's not as hot as it has been. It's one of these things - if we knew it was coming we could obviously prepare. We've [bought water in shops] this morning because we had to go down to get drinking water more for the humans. It's one of these things you don't realise until you haven't got it just how critical it is.
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"Because obviously we deal with sick, injured and cruelly treated animals, cleaning the kennels is very critical for us and that does involve using water and mops and buckets and hosing down things. So it has been difficult this morning. Fingers crossed that everything comes back to us this evening."
According to the Irish Water website, the outage on Mount Venus Road is because of a pump station "interruption".
It says: "A pump station interruption may cause supply disruptions to Mount Venus Road, Woodtown Way, Rathfarnham and surrounding areas in Dublin 16. Works are now scheduled to take place until 6pm on 15 August. We recommend that you allow 2-3 hours after the estimated restoration time for your supply to fully return."
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