Figures released by Irish Water show five counties are losing over half of their water to leaks. Tipperary, Kerry, Mayo, Cork, and Roscommon at 62% are the worst performing local areas.
The Irish Times reported that Jerry Grant, head of asset management for Irish Water, said about 800 million litres of water is being lost each day, which is 49 per cent nationally.
So what’s being done to address the problem and repair leaks?
Mr Grant spoke to Newstalk Lunchtime today and stated the matter is an ongoing problem for Irish Water. He also stated that the meters which were rolled out last year are helping to calculate leaks.
"We don't know where the leaks are, it takes a great deal of work.
"There's a huge amount of work that has to go into finding the areas of maximum leakage. We now have for the first time ever a network of leaks.
Jonathan asked whether the meters needed to be rolled out and could we not have installed cheaper mechanism to which Mr Grant replied: "The priority for us is saving water, the domestic meters will save water.
"10% of domestic houses are leaking significant amounts of water.
"I'm interested in saving water.
"It's a long term project, we'll be at it for 20 years."
You can listen to the full interview here:
