Cork floods: 'We have to start again. It is heartbreaking'

Bantry family-run business swamped by floods for seventh time since 2008 

Oran, Eddie, and Gearóid Wiseman clenaing uo the damage caused to  Wiseman's Footwear & Clothing store in Bantry, Co Cork, after the town was particularly badly hit by flooding brought on by Storm Francis. Picture: Andy Gibson

Exhausted and frustrated, Gearóid Wiseman is counting the cost of the seventh flood since 2008 to swamp his third-generation family business.

After a 12-week lockdown closure, painstaking preparations to reopen safely, and a flurry of stock deliveries in recent days, his clothing and footwear shop, Wiseman’s, in Bantry, West Cork, was one of 50 premises in the town  swamped during Storm Francis when a culvert was overwhelmed.

“All that preparation to reopen after lockdown is gone. We have to start again. It’s just heartbreaking,” he said.

And he issued a strong message to the authorities after the third flood event to hit the region in just over two weeks.

“Bantry is built in a hollow, and everything flows into it, but the drains are not fit for purpose and they have done nothing to address that — for years,” he said. “There have been years of inaction and no-one is accountable. 

“If I sell a pair of shoes, and there’s a fault with them, I’m accountable. But when things like this happen, no-one seems to be accountable. They all blame each other.”

“I have to come to work to provide a service, nurses did their jobs, teachers are going back to work, we had firefighters and council workers here doing their job during the flood, it’s time now for the engineers and the officials in County Hall to do their job.” 

Social Democrats TD Holly Cairns called for urgent action to prevent a repeat of flooding in the short term, and for a complete overhaul of the State’s "piecemeal" approach to flood relief.

“Local family-run business are fronting the cost of inaction,” she said.

OPW Minister Patrick O’Donovan will visit West Cork today, with Minister for Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath due to visit tomorrow.