Businesses demand funds as flood bill set to top €50m

Cork’s embattled business community is demanding a clear commitment of government funds for flood defences in the city as it emerges that the bill for this week’s flooding will top €50m.

The call for action comes as the Taoiseach admitted that the €250m he is allocating to bolster the country’s flood defences over the next five years will not be enough.

Speaking in the Dáil, Enda Kenny said the cost of building 10km of wall defences in Cork alone would be in the region of €50m-€100m and it was a complex engineering challenge to halt the “the inexorable rise of tides and consequential water back-up”.

Thousands of homes and businesses across counties Cork, Wexford, Waterford, Limerick, Tipperary, and Galway have been damaged this week by severe storms and tidal surges this week.

The Department of Social Protection said much of the €15m in emergency funding is to be channelled through exceptional needs schemes at community welfare offices which will provide funding for food and clothing, and through the means-tested Humanitarian Assistance Scheme, focused on social welfare recipients who cannot afford to repair their homes.

The National Emergency Co-ordination Group is advising communities to remain vigilant and aware of water levels and weather patterns — especially if they live near rivers.

“While the risk of tidal flooding will recede in the coming days, because the seasonal high tides have passed, the current weather pattern is likely to continue for the next 7-10 days, and the major risk in the period will come from river flooding, as nearly every river in the country is already near capacity,” it said in a statement after yesterday’s meeting.

Meanwhile, there are further calls for the Government to consider erecting a tidal barrier across the River Lee in Cork — a smaller version of the Thames Barrier.

“The only sustainable way to manage flooding caused by spring tides and tidal surge in Cork is to construct a tidal barrier across the River Lee,” said Jimmy Murphy of UCC’s Beaufort Institute.

The Thames Barrier cost £500m when it was constructed 30 years ago.

Conservative estimates put the cost of damage caused by the floods in Cork city this week at close to €50m.

Eamonn Downey, of Owens McCarthy Ltd, the country’s largest independent firm of loss assessors, said his firm is dealing with claims on insured damage alone of almost €4m.

Meanwhile, Senator Colm Burke has called for the introduction of a fund to support homeowners unable to get flood insurance.

He said all insurance companies would contribute to the fund in the same way as they do to the Motor Insurance Bureau fund, which provides compensation for those who are injured by an uninsured driver.