Recent events should make water harvesting a priority in Kildare – Daly

Speaking at the recent meeting of Athy Town Council, Cllr Richard Daly said that the recent lack of domestic water within the county must accelerate the need for dramatic measures to promote water harvesting.

“In the wake of the water shortage we all are asking what went wrong when up to recently we were assured that, particularly in Athy, water supply would be adequate. But as time advances so many of our sources are becoming unreliable. In Athy we will this year we have some €300,000 set aside to connect to another supply coming from the Monasterevin direction and in 2012 the multi million Barrow Abstraction facility will draw millions of litres from the Barrow in Athy to augment the county supply.

The most obvious source of water is as yet being untapped. While we are looking in future years at the possibility of sourcing water from the Shannon to serve the Greater Dublin area, we have ample supplies of the material literally falling from the skies on an almost daily basis. We are failing to treat drinking water as a precious resource and continue to use treated water to flush toilets and wash cars. Anybody who was forced to carry buckets of water recently to flush toilets will be aware of the volume of treated water which we literally flush down the toilet each week.

It is time we started to get serious in the harvesting of the free water which falls on our roofs almost too frequently. In former times our forefathers saw the value of storing water and each house used water barrels and water tanks to supply water for the several uses but with the arrival of many of the water schemes this was all abandoned.

I will be encouraging both town and county development plans to insist on water harvesting systems in all new developments both industrial and domestic and try to help develop a society where we treat clean water as a precious resource. We must also promote and grant aid the retro fitting of harvesting systems in existing houses” said Cllr. Daly

Daly congratulates KFM radio for excellent community broadcasting

The very essence of community radio has been displayed at its best by kfm radio during this weather condition according to Cllr Richard Daly of Fine Gael.

“Throughout the county I am hearing compliments on the excellent service being provided by Kildare’s local radio station kfm during this cold spell. Even regular listeners to other stations have switched over to our local station to avail of the traffic and community updates.

Community radio is about building up communities and developing community spirit. Over the past couple of weeks every presenter on the station has continued the constant updates on traffic and community information on the availability of water, etc and relaying material from the local authorities.

On behalf of the many isolated citizens and the general public within the area I would like to convey a very special thanks to the management and staff of the station for their continues good work.” he said

“Weather difficulties not only present challenges but they also present opportunities for communities to work together and give of their best and both on the air and on their website kfm have been a shining example of good community broadcasting”

Daly praises Kildare Road Users Group and Road Safety officer

The fact that there are over thirty less deaths on Ireland’s roads must be welcomed according to Cllr Richard Daly of Fine Gael

“In 2005 we had nearly 400 deaths on our roads annually which was more than one per day. Thankfully this has been dropping to a current level of 240 which is 20 per month or two thirds of the 2005 figure. This figure is still not acceptable but it is a dramatic improvement on previous years.
Kildare is fortunate that it has a full time Road Safety officer who has been constantly delivering the message of responsible road use through the media and at all major events in the county and this in no small way has raised people’s awareness of road safety.” Said Cllr Daly
“Kildare was also nationally praised for the work of the Kildare Road Users Group which has constantly lobbied for improvement in Education, Engineering and Enforcement.
We sometimes forget that the figures for those killed on the roads also indicate a probable figure for those who are injured and this is probably ten times the fatality figure. There are many homes who are starting a new year with a family member killed or injured through avoidable circumstances.
We need the introduction of more speed cameras and more advances in the detection of drug driving but for the moment the message is a positive one as our fatality figure is dropping”