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By Sean Moriarty

There’s anger in Kilcummin this week after Irish Water announced that it’s to delay plans for the €2.3m sewerage scheme until 2022.

Residents are waiting the best part of 20 years for a sewage scheme in the their area. However, Kerry County Council say they are going to press ahead with €360,000  worth of repairs of the main regional road between Killarney and Kilcummin and charge Irish Water for any future costs in restoring the roads after the sewerage work is done.

The announcement was made during Wednesday’s Killarney’s Municipal District meeting after Council officials revealed that Irish Water had back-tracked on a previous promise to start works on the much overdue scheme.

The Council were holding back on road repairs and resurfacing works in the area as “doing a road to dig it up again is not the way to do business”.

The Council was told at a previous meeting with Irish Water in January that the works would start this year, but a letter read out at this week’s Council meeting confirmed that the scheme will be further delayed until at least 2022.

At several previous meetings, elected members were divided over issues regarding the various works that need to be carried out in Kilcummin. Some councillors were calling for an immediate start to the road improvement works but others argued that it was pointless resurfacing roads in the area when Irish Water would dig them up again to facilitate the scheme.

However, they were united on Wednesday when the letter was read out and expressed their disgust at the way Irish Water was treating residents of the local area.

Mayor Michael Gleeson said that Irish Water was no longer “worthy of our respect”, while Cllr Niall ‘Botty’ O’Callaghan labelled Irish Water as “liars”.

“It is a complete betrayal,” said Cllr Brendan Cronin.

Cllr Marie Moloney, who lives in Kilcummin said: “Everytime this is kicked down the road, one month ago they give us a completely different time line”.

Cllr Donal Grady defended colleagues who had now changed their minds.

“In fairness, fellow councillors did not know what they now know, they did not expect what we got today,” he told the meeting. “Let’s get together and get this road done”.

Senior County Council engineer John Breen said the road repairs will now become a priority and that he would have no hesitation in cross charging Irish Water for future restoration works in the area.

“Everything the councillors have said, I have expressed to Irish Water,” he told the meeting. “We will proceed with the road and any additional costs will have to be borne by Irish Water.”