Concerns over fish and wildlife should go out the window when people’s lives are being destroyed by flooding, according to Cllr John King.
The cathaoirleach of Borris-in-Ossory/Mountmellick Municipal District made the comment during their meeting earlier today.
Cllr Seamus McDonald had a motion before the meeting asking the council to, due to recent flooding, “put in place and seek funding to carry out drainage works at the River Barrow, Owneass and Clodiagh”.
Council engineer Paul McLoughlin replied: “Laois County Council will work with all stakeholders concerned with a view to carrying out river maintenance works within the resources available to the authority”.
He added that there are many stakeholders involved including the OPW, the Inland Fisheries, National Parks and Wildlife Service and the landowners themselves.
He confirmed that a meeting is to take place with the National Parks and Wildlife Service to discuss how they can best advance the works.
“They want to have works done collectively,” he said.
Great work had been done at the Tinnahinch Bridge, Cllr McDonald said.
“People have suffered all around the Barrow river,” he said.
He said works need to carried out all the way back up to the Glenbarrow. The river banks have fallen in,” he said.
Debris
The Owenass also needs to be cleaned, Cllr Paddy Bracken said, as there are trees and debris in the water.
“An amount of work needs to be done on those rivers and they need to be cleaned out. It hasn’t been done in years,” he said.
Funding has to be secured, he said.
Sandbags are being placed in Mountmellick again, with further threats of rain, Cllr Bracken said.
“There could be devastating consequences in Mountmellick again,” he warned.
“We need to sit down and tackle this immediately,” he said.
“As elected representatives, we will be failing if we don’t tackle this,” he said.
While the heavy rain which fell during recent flooding was a one in a thousand years event, Cllr James Kelly said they need to have preventative maintenance.
There are issue in Mountrath with pipes under the bridge there, and stepping stones which aren’t used.
“This has been talked about for years,” Cllr David Goodwin said.
He said Minister Charlie Flanagan should be made aware of the “ineptitude of State boards”.
As a former member of the Barrow Drainage Board, and his father before him, Cllr Goodwin said all that was done was consultants reports.
A claim has been sent over the cost expended by the council, director of services Donal Brennan said.
Changes
He said the council CEO has also written to the OPW raising what changes are needed on the Catchment Flood Risk Assessment and Management (CFRAM) for Mountmellick.
Anything that is done in Mountmellick must be sufficient to ensure that homeowners can get insurance in the future.
“We have to be careful when we do work, we don’t push flooding somewhere else. We don’t want to push flooding from Mountmellick to Portarlington,” he said.
He said they would brief the elected representatives following the meeting with National Parks and Wildlife Service.
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