City now paying for farm drainage grants

I LIVE beside the River Sullane which joins the River Lee just below Macroom in Co Cork. The Sullane has a big catchment area and 10 to 15 years ago it would rise slowly and take three to four days to drop again. Now the river rises in an hour and drops in three to four hours. Why is this?

The Government gave grants to the farming community to drain every bog and pond from Macroom back to the Ketty border and all over Ireland. Some bureaucrat sitting at a desk in Dublin never thought what was going to happen next – the flooding of Cork.

I hasten to add I have nothing against the farming community – this was not their fault.