Resident urges switch to rival power suppliers

THE owner of one of the first homes to be swamped by the deluge has urged people to hit the ESB where it hurts – by switching to rival power suppliers.

Frances O’Callaghan, who lives in Inniscarra, Co Cork, said it is the best form of protest for flood victims angry at how the state-owned power company has treated them over the last year.

“I am not happy with the company’s attitude, its arrogance towards customers and residents downstream,” she said. “For a state body to think so little of the residents of Inniscarra and Cork city is a disgrace. We don’t sleep easy at night. It’s a miracle they don’t have blood on their hands.”

Ms O’Callaghan, who is chairwoman of the Lower Inniscarra Residents’ Association, has herself switched to a rival power company in protest. Her home, which has been in her family for over a century, is just a few miles downstream of the Inniscarra dam. She is on an ESB list of residents the company contacts when it plans to release large volumes of water.

She was telephoned by a dam operative at 4.30pm on November 19 and told to evacuate her home. She asked how much water would be released and was told it would be in the order of 560 tonnes of water per second. This is despite the fact that the ESB’s last official warning to city authorities at 5pm stated just 300 tonnes per second.

Her home, which had never flooded, and escaped damage during the last major flood in 1963, was inundated by almost two feet of water. It was almost four months before she was able to move back home. Other neighbours whose homes were flooded have yet to return home, such was the extent of the damage.

“I didn’t have a Christmas last year,” she said. “We’ve all had to pick up the pieces during the last year. But there are things that will never be replaced. The physical thing passes, but the emotional damage remains.”

She said all those affected by the flood feel let down by public representatives and by the political reaction. She has now taken it upon herself, on behalf of the residents’ association, to lobby the Taoiseach, Minister Micheál Martin, her local TD and minister, Batt O’Keeffe, among others, for a public inquiry into the disaster.

“It’s hard to keep fighting. Some elderly people were shattered by this and they haven’t got the stomach for it,” she said. “And we don’t want to be moaning. But that’s easy until the rain starts to fall. What hurts most is that the ESB is not contrite.”