Newcastle West residents express their anger
ONE year after Newcastle West suffered from the severest flooding in centuries, many householders have not yet been able to return to their homes, some businesses are still closed and flood victims have not received any compensation.
At a special anniversary meeting, hosted by the Newcastle West Flood Committee, chairman, Pat O’Donovan,
criticised Limerick County Council for failing to implement a more stringent management of storm water on public roads, which is a major cause of flooding.
While an interim flood report, costing 22,000 euro, was submitted on behalf of the council by JBA Consultants, and a detailed report was to follow, the committee has yet to be informed as to when and by whom the full report is to be completed and the measures that are identified to provide adequate flood defences against future flooding.
Mr O’Donovan said none of the area’s Dail representatives – deputy Niall Collins, deputy John Cregan and deputy Dan Neville- attended. The committee voiced concern regarding a number of omissions in the JBA Report, between the original draft submitted to the council and the final draft which was presented to the public.
Questions being asked by the committee include: what is the proposed timescale for the reopening of roads affected by the flood: Why is the public sewer also taking storm water from the town – thereby causing an overload; why has no action been taken to remove a building across the river, which the report claims was a major contributor to the flood; why has there been such a poor response from the local Dail deputies.
Mr O’Donovan points out that in recent years, Dublin flood victims received 5,000 euro each compensation due to flooding and that last August, Belfast flood victims received 1,000 euro compensation because of flooding of their area, while not one euro compensation has yet been paid to Newcastle West victims.
Paying tribute to members of the public who made donations for the victims, he said it was unfortunate that the committee had no input into the distribution of the funds to the flood victims.
The committee pledged to ‘continue to seek justice for the Newcastle West flood victims’.
After the meeting, Mr O’Donovan told this newspaper that they will persevere in highlighting the issue.
“Not one cent has been given in compensation by the council and after the flood, they did not as much as issue a set of guidelines to us on how best, from a health and safety point of view, strategically tackle the clean up. People whose properties were hit by the flood, in some cases, lost personal valuables, had to close their premises to business and except for the insurance they received – those that had insurance, they didn’t get a penny in compensation from the council – and given the climate we’re experiencing again this year, we could easily have a repetition of last year’s disaster”.
