Interim flood defences will be put in place in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, immediately, Taoiseach Micheál Martin told sceptical householders and business owners on a visit to the town which was badly hit by the recent deluge.
Arriving on Monday at Abbey Quay, which featured submerged cars during the worst of the weather last week, Martin listened intently to Conor Swaine, proprietor of the Btwenty7 coffee shop, who told him the town needed help. His business was flooded, as was his father’s grocery shop across the river on Shannon Quay.
Martin assured Swaine that immediate support would be in place, interim flood defences would arrive and, in the longer term, there would be a permanent defence scheme.
“You can only take him at his word,” said Swaine as the Taoiseach, followed by Minister for Housing James Browne, Minister of State for Infrastructure Kevin Boxer Moran, and a posse of about 30 journalists, cameramen, council workers and gardaí moved on up the street.
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Outside Holohan’s bar, Martin spoke to owner Niall Holohan.
“I told him I would give him a shovel to start the work now, save him coming back again,” said Holohan.
Wexford County Council chief executive Eddie Taaffe guided Martin across the road, showing him the Slaney upriver of the town’s oldest bridge. He pointed out the levels the river had reached during storm Chandra.
As Martin disappeared into a car-repair business run by John Lacey, Moran explained assistance the Office of Public Works (OPW), and others, were offering beleaguered Enniscorthy people. “Firstly, we have aquadams he said, producing a picture of the sausage-shaped, red-coloured, inflatable barriers that could be installed “immediately” and which, he noted, had been sent to Wexford by Westmeath County Council.
Moran added there could be non-return valves fitted to drains which run down to the river and the plan was to install “storm chambers like big concrete boxes” which would take flood water, before pumping it south of the bridge. “The bridge was a barrier, the water backed up”, he said.
Martin’s tour of the Co Wexford town came at a time when various counties were told to brace themselves for further rain and consequential flooding.
Status yellow rain warnings were back in place for Carlow, Cork, Kilkenny, Waterford and Wexford from 9pm on Monday. On Tuesday, additional warnings come into place for Dublin, Louth and Wicklow. The extremely wet conditions of recent weeks look set to be replaced by freezing weather and snow by the middle of the month.
At Island Road, Martin met householders whose ruined furniture, carpets, wooden floors and kitchen equipment were stacked on the pavement.
“It is going on too long”, said the resident of number 35, Peter O’Brien, who showed Martin his back garden where the river came in before flooding the house. The water level reached 4ft in his home, he said. “It could be there this evening, we don’t know what is going to happen.”
Across the road in the home of John McNamara (90), Martin was presented with a painting, Valley of Shadows, depicting a messianic figure in a boat rescuing people from floods, by McNamara’s sister, Sarah Thompson.
Thompson said she wanted Martin to hang the picture, painted by her nephew, the artist Emmett Cathcart, in Leinster House and he agreed. She said the painting would remind him of his promises to the people of Enniscorthy.
Thompson told Martin that the McNamara family of 14, who had been reared in the Island Road house, remembered repeated flooding since 1965. She said she had heard many commitments that the problem would be fixed, but it had not happened.
A wet week in Irish politics
“I am very angry about the delays here,” Martin told her.
Afterwards, Thompson said: “I am not quite reassured. We will wait and see the results. But I will go up to Leinster House to see that painting hanging there.”
At a press briefing before Martin went on to tour flooded towns in Kilkenny, Carlow and Wicklow, he said “the objective is, first of all, to provide humanitarian support to the families and also supports to the businesses that have been impacted.
“Secondly, the OPW will work with the local authority in respect of interim measures to try to protect these houses and this location more generally. And there are interim measures that can be taken to provide that protection and reassurance and we will do that.”
He said a further “substantial, comprehensive scheme” would be submitted for planning permission.
