Flooding disaster - Effective action must be taken

People throughout the country have been hit by rising floodwaters.

Affected areas stretch from Monaghan to Cork and from Galway to Wexford. They include Clare, Waterford, Longford, Kerry, Tipperary, and Kilkenny.

In many places the flooding is the worst in living memory. In Cork, patients had to be moved from the first floor of Mercy Hospital which was inundated with flood waters. The flooding in the city was exacerbated overnight by the forced release of waters from Cork’s Iniscarra dam, and questions will have to be answered later about the amount of water released.