ESB chief defends flood warnings

THE head of the ESB has defended the company’s flood warnings issued in the hours before Cork was struck by the worst flood in living memory.

Company chief executive Padraig McManus said: “There was no ambiguity whatsoever in the flood warnings we gave – it meant serious flooding for Cork.”

Mr McManus was reacting publicly for the first time following publication of a report by Cork’s city manager Joe Gavin on the flood crisis. It detailed the flood warnings issued by the ESB to the city council about the volumes of water being discharged from the Inniscarra Dam, eight miles above Cork city, on November 19.