Protest to take place in Midleton today over flood relief delay

COMMUNITIES in Midleton and East Cork have been left to fend for themselves in the aftermath of the devastation caused by Storm Babet flooding, the chairperson of a group set up to represent families impacted by the extreme weather event last October has said.

Mona Stromsoe, who is also an Aontú candidate in the forthcoming local elections in the East Cork electoral area, said that many people in the area were living with high anxiety every time there was heavy rainfall since the events of October.

Ms Stromsoe was speaking in advance of a protest which the group has organised to take place at noon today through the centre of Midleton.

The group presented a petition containing almost 15,000 signatures at Leinster House back in February, calling for urgent interim flood prevention measures to be put in place.

According to the statement issued by Ms Stromsoe this week, there had been no progress in implementing such measures.

“In fact, the Minister for the Office of Public Works (OPW), Kieran O’Donnell, said that it could be 2026 before planning permission for the Flood Relief Scheme is submitted. Back in November, we were told this would happen in Q4 2025,” said Ms Stromsoe.

“Since submitting our petition, we have made numerous attempts to engage with our local TDs, but these have not been fruitful and so we felt there was no option but to escalate our campaign.”

Local TDs have defended their representations and pointed to regular interventions in Dáil Éireann when they raised the issue on numerous occasions.

Sinn Féin TD for Cork East Pat Buckley said that he had had numerous Dáil questions on the issues arising out of the Storm Babet flooding, and he referred to a Dáil exchange two weeks ago in which he and other Cork East TDs — David Stanton of Fine Gael and James O’Connor of Fianna Fáil, and Mid-West TD and Aontú party leader Peadar Tóibín — had questioned the minister of state in the Office of Public Works, Kieran O’Donnell, about the flood relief scheme proposed for Midleton.

“I don’t play politics when it comes to local issues,” the Sinn Féin TD said.

“I’m on the record in the Dáil.”

In a recent Dáil contribution, the TD said that the issues arising out of Storm Babet boiled down to three essential issues.

“The fear, the frustration, and the pace are the three problems here. It seems that there are solutions, but it’s the pace of them to come and it was a miracle that no-one was killed because it [the flooding] happened so fast.”

He said that a National Catchment Flood Risk and Management (CFRM) study carried out by the Office of Public Works in 2013 had predicted a 1.4m high flood in the event of a 100-year event. “You could have 10 one-in-a-hundred-year events in a day,” he said, extending his gratitude to Cork County Council for its efforts to deal with the issue, reiterating that he wouldn’t play party politics with the issue, and adding that he was working with other constituency TDs to continue to press for action.

Today’s march gets underway at noon at the Corabbey car park and proceeds to Market Green, where there will be a number of speeches.