There was standing room only at a well-attended emergency meeting held in Passage East community centre last Sunday as Minister of State with responsibility for the Office of Public Works, Kevin Boxer Moran attended to address concerns of people affected by recent flooding.
Emotions were high as the minister spoke to people at the meeting, which began at 10.30am.
Passage East rose to national prominence over the past week after a brook overflowed and flooded the village, damaging 25 homes.
One resident outlined how their family has been impacted by the floods.
“My house was flooded out in Post Office Square. I couldn’t get out of my house with the volume of water that was flowing, I couldn’t even open the door. There are elderly living in that Square as well,” said the resident.
“And I just think, oh the limits have been raised, the funding has been raised, what’s the point in throwing good money at the same local authority who even now refuses to acknowledge that there were deficits in the response and planning for this flood?” said the resident.
“We’ve had heavy rain since Christmas, yellow, orange rain warnings, and phone calls made to the Council to log concerns to warn them that the brook was overflowing on Friday evening and there was nothing. We’re paying the price of it now. We’ve all got exclusions on our home insurance. I’m on my own with three kids in the house, trying to figure out how I’m going to replace carpets I had to rip out. My son’s asthmatic. The place is stinking and we have just been put through hoops,” the resident added.
FLOODING IN PASSAGE EAST
A week previous to the flooding, a roads engineer from the Council had visited to view the grate which serviced the brook in Passage East, after receiving a complaint from a local resident. It transpired that the local person had been clearing the grate by themselves for some time, but feared it was about to overflow due to the unprecedented rainfall in recent weeks.
On Friday, 30 January the resident’s fears came to pass as the brook overflowed and water ran directly into the village. The residents did their best to fight back the flood water from their homes but were unable to prevent considerable damage, with a recent account explaining that the old houses had water coming through the walls, not just the front door.
EMERGENCY MEETING
At the top table of the emergency meeting held last Sunday at the community centre in Passage East were Director of Services for Waterford Council, Gabriel Hynes, CEO of Waterford Council Sean McKeown, Minster for State Mary Buter, Minster for State Kevin Boxer Moran, and Minister for State John Cummins.
Among the crowd were locals directly impacted by the flooding, along with TD David Cullinane, Cllr. Pat Fitzgerald, Cllr. Adam Wyse, Cllr. Jim Darcy, Cllr. Declan Barry, Senator Joe Conway, and Cllr. David Daniels.
The meeting began with the top table addressing the crowd. Minister Moran opened his comments by saying, “I’ve been all over the Country in the last ten days, and what we have experienced in those ten days is so much carnage, so much damage, so much hurt, and so much stress. For not just the home owners but the business owners, it has been very, very hard”.
“They look to me, as the Minister for the Office of Public Works [for solutions] in the short term and what can we deliver in the long term,” Minister Moran said.
“We know that our rivers are full and a lot of rain came from the mountains, as it did here in this beautiful part of the world. Same thing happened here as happened in Wicklow, and we all know what the consequences were.”
It was emphasised that the Individual Property Protection Scheme will be a priority moving forward to allow homeowners the means to protect their own property with flood doors. A commitment was also made to provide the community with sandbags in a place that they can access immediately, without having to wait for a Council crew to come out to the village.
The usefulness of having sandbags outside the village, which has an aging population, was directly challenged by a resident at the meeting.
While the Council’s allocation of resources was also questioned, the efforts of the Council’s on-the-ground team and the fire brigade, who worked long into the night, has been praised highly by all involved.
The Munster Express spoke to Minster Moran after the meeting.
The alarm was raised that the brook was going to overflow a week before, was the flooding in Passage avoidable?
“I can’t make comment on that,” Minister Moran replied. “The first I heard of it was inside in the room, but the local authority did say they have to review and see can they improve on things, and I have no doubt they will do. But that’s little consolation to the people but I will let the local authority deal with that.”
The fact that there is a review into the situation, does that mean there were mistakes made?
“I will never blame anybody. What we have to do is work together. These are people’s lives, people’s homes, the stress, the trauma,” said the Minister. “What we have to do is work together. What we have to do from an engineering point of view, from the local authority, we have to learn but we also have to improve.
“That’s not just them, that’s us all and I’ll be there to help them along the way. At the same time, you have to be able to help the local community,” added Minister Moran.
COUNCIL REVIEW
With Minster Moran unaware before the meeting that issues in the brook in Passage East had been reported a week previous, The Munster Express spoke to Council CEO Sean McKeown about the situation.
You have committed to an honest review, does that mean there were mistakes made?
“We’re hearing views from the local community; we’re hearing views from the local business. We have a record of what calls we have received, we’ve a recorded of what the general operatives and the ground crews did, and the timings of all that. We have to look at all of that,” replied Mr. McKeown.
“The severe weather assessment team got a prioritisation in relation to where the risks were around the county, so we have to look at where Passage was in all of that. It will be a genuinely honest review to ensure this situation doesn’t arise again.”
This event [the emergency meeting] then, is this a sign that something went wrong? It would be unusual for the ministers and such senior people to come to a rural village like this.
“The flooding event itself was unprecedented and it has led to issues where we didn’t see flooding in places before,” said Mr. McKeown. “Passage East has flooded before we didn’t deem it to be high risk earlier in the week. Obviously, the situation that developed here last Friday would suggest that there are learnings.”
So that was a mistake?
“Well, I’m not saying that. You’re trying to put words in my mouth now. I think honestly the severe weather assessment team has to look at all the facts, all of the evidence, what calls were made, what did we do and there ultimately will be learnings to be had from that and we are quite willing to take those into account and to address wrongs if that’s what happened,” Mr. McKeown said.
Is there a date for the review?
“We’ve just come out of the storm event itself so it will happen this week,” Mr. McKeown added.
AARON KENT Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme
