Storm Babet: Taoiseach to visit Cork to assess damage caused by floods

Vivienne Clarke

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar intends to visit East Cork on Thursday to assess the situation following the floods caused by Storm Babet.

Humanitarian schemes will be put in place for householders, families and businesses to assist with the cost of the clean-up, he told RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show.

“It seems like these are very serious floods and there is real devastation in Midleton and in a number of towns. The Defence Forces were out last night helping people to move things to prevent the flood from spreading. We're putting in place humanitarian schemes to help householders, families, businesses with some of the costs of the clean-up.”

It was very evident that there was a lot of damage to roads, walls and other public infrastructure, he said, adding that the damage needed to be assessed, and then a special allocation will be made for repairs.

“There are different flood schemes in different places and in some places they've been built and they've worked very well, and other places they get stuck in planning because there are big environmental issues around flood works, and some are stuck in the courts and that is a real difficulty.”

Mr Varadkar explained there are sometimes delays because of opposition and sometimes plans got “stuck in the courts” because of concern about the environmental impact on habitats and wildlife.

Asked if he would be questioning the weather alarm system, and why an orange alert had been issued for Cork rather than red, he said he had some questions about what had happened, but added he was not the person making those calls.

“We will have to look back on what was done, what could have been done better, but that's not for today. Today is about the clean-up.”

He said there was a possibility that people did not pay attention to severe weather warnings, but added that was too easy to say because if a warning was not issued, then there would be criticism about that too.

“I'm not the expert in the area, and I certainly don't want to be blaming anyone, because I'm not. But what we'll do after any flood or any severe weather event is we'll do a sort of after-the-fact analysis, look at what was done, what could have been done better, and what can be learnt for future events, but today isn't about that.

“Today is about picking up and making sure that we protect people and property and then also assuring people in the areas affected that there will be help, financial help for homes, businesses, sports clubs and any infrastructure that has been damaged will be repaired.”