Water Supply: Northern Ireland

Lord Trefgarne Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Trefgarne]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assistance they provided to the Northern Ireland authorities during their recent difficulties with water supplies.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

My Lords, during the period of extreme cold weather, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland met the devolved Ministers with policy responsibility in this area and offered the Government’s assistance. He subsequently discussed the matter with the Secretary of State for the Environment and with Water UK, and helped to identify additional call-centre capacity to deal with the heavy volume of calls from customers in Northern Ireland who had suffered disruption.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for that reply. I am reassured to hear that there was additional call-centre capacity, but I wonder what additional water was supplied.

[Lord Shutt of Greetland]

As far as water is concerned, there is no shortage of water in Northern Ireland. The good Lord makes good provision. The problem is getting the water to where it is needed. Extra water was pumped into the pipes but the problem was that some of that leaked out. However, the call centres were very important indeed and we must not forget that. An offer of assistance was made by the First Minister of Scotland—a sort of Christmas gift—and 160,000 litres of Scotland's water were taken across to Northern Ireland. I am sure that those in Northern Ireland were very pleased to have it. However, Northern Ireland's daily consumption of water is 625,000,000 litres. In other words, the gift from Scotland, welcome though it may have been, was 0.000256 per cent of a day’s water usage.