Clean-up of floods will cost millions of euro says minister

The clean-up costs for the floods will run into millions of euro, a minister has said, as he warned of further possible flooding. Rising waters are set to peak today.

Simon Harris, the minister in charge of the Office of Public Works, said areas around the lower and middle bases of the Shannon, including Athlone, could be flooded. He said local authorities were compiling their assessments of the damage from the recent heavy rainfall, which would amount to at least several million euro.

The ESB yesterday told the national emergency co-ordination group that the Shannon would rise to 440 cubic metres a second — just short of its damaging peak in 2009, which left large swaths of the country underwater.