A couple whose "heroic efforts" prevented flooding in their Co Galway home in 1995 were told they are not entitled to assistance under a State aid scheme because the house was not flooded, the High Court heard yesterday.
Brid and Charles Harris, Gate Lodge, Cregclare, Ardrahan, installed sandbags to a height of six feet to stop water coming into their house and stayed there for 11 days and nights while other houses in the area were flooded, Mr Justice Barr heard.
But when they applied to the Office of Public Works for assistance under a humanitarian aid scheme, they were refused on the basis that flooding had not occurred in 1995, it was claimed. Their house had been flooded up to a height of three and a half feet in 1990. The couple claimed their grounds were in a mess after the 1995 floods and that the building itself was virtually uninhabitable.
Yesterday, the High Court granted the couple leave to challenge the OPW decision by way of judicial review. House owners and occupiers qualify for assistance under the scheme when the building is damaged by flood to the extent that it cannot be repaired at reasonable cost, or when it was flooded for an extended period, the court heard.
Mr Michael McDonald, counsel for the couple, said the OPW had prepared a scheme for the relocation of people whose houses had been flooded for 21 days. It was because of his clients' heroic efforts that they were not flooded, he said.
In an affidavit, Mrs Harris said that their house was more than 200 years old. They acquired it in the 1980s and completed restoration in 1987. The Ardrahan area was liable to flooding and because of that the OPW prepared the humanitarian aid scheme.
In 1990, the house was completely inundated by flood waters for five weeks. The family had to leave the house and move 11 miles away to Ardrahan. When the flooding receded, they had to bring most of their possessions to the local dump.
The flooding was totally unexpected when they bought their house, Mrs Harris said. From 1990 onwards, they were very apprehensive. There was flooding during heavy rain in 1991 and 1994, but their house was not affected.
In 1995, flooding came up to their front gate and then started to come in towards the back. The gardens were covered with water. They stripped everything from the ground floor and moved these articles upstairs. They then moved to a rented house. Mrs Harris said they spent every day sandbagging the area in and around the house. As the water level rose, they continued to raise the level of the sandbags. They remained on the site day and night and put up 250 sandbags, preventing the water from getting into the house. After 11 days, the water began to recede. When the water receded, the grounds were in a complete mess. The house was virtually uninhabitable by virtue of the works that had been carried out internally and externally. It was with great relief that they discovered after the floods of 1995 that the OPW had prepared a scheme which allowed for occupiers and owners to relocate from houses suffering from flooding.
"We were delighted that at last the nightmare of living in the house could be at an end because it was having a very great effect on our children's mental stability as well as our financial resources," Mrs Harris added.
They made an application under the aid scheme to the OPW but were refused because the house had not been flooded. Clearly, it would have been better if they had let their house be flooded, Mrs Harris said.
This was such "a bizarre interpretation" of the scheme that no reasonable person could interpret it in that manner, she said.