East Cork flood relief works ‘in limbo,’ TD says

By Peter McCarthy, Corkman

East Cork residents are growing increasingly frustrated at the slow pace of flood relief works in an area that was hit hard by Storm Babet two years ago with fears that the autumn and winter will bring more devastating rainfall and possibly even loss of life.

Midleton experienced massive flooding in the aftermath of the storm in October 2023 when a month's worth of rainfall fell on the town over two days, causing damage estimated at nearly €200m.

The villages of Mogeely, Castlemartyr, Killeagh, Rathcormac, Whitegate, Ballinacurra and Ladysbridge are also at risk to varying degrees as is the town of Youghal. Local TD Liam Quaide has now written to Minister of State Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran, who has responsibility for the Office of Public Works (OPW), calling on him to visit East Cork.

Deputy Quaide says progress on flood relief works in the area is much too slow: “As things stand, almost two years since the last catastrophic floods we have a large-scale flood relief scheme for Midleton moving slowly towards a planning phase and other smaller-scale projects for villages in East Cork in various stages of limbo.”

“Residents and business owners need to be briefed on a programme of works with clear timeframes that meets the urgency and scale of flood risk we continue to face,” the Social Democrats TD said.

Caroline Leahy of the Midleton & East Cork Flood Protection Group told the Irish Independent that very little work has happened on the ground in Midleton in the two years since Storm Babet, despite €55 million in funding being ring-fenced for extensive flood relief works for the town. She said there’s genuine fear that lives could be lost if a major flood happens again.

“What we had then was terrifying because of the speed and the height [of water]. It was about 900 properties in the end that got flooded. So the general feeling is that we escaped without a loss of life by luck and not by anything else and there’s a big worry around that.”

A planning application for Midleton’s major flood relief scheme, which has a scheduled finish date of 2032 and is aimed at protecting the town from a one-in-a-hundred-year flooding event, is due to go in during the second quarter of 2026 but Ms Leahy fears that that date won’t be met.

She said there seems to be “a lot of passing the buck from one department to the next. And what that shows is the complete lack of urgency. We need a schedule of works, we need a timeline of works, we need that timeline to be complied with.”

A flood-gate grant scheme was approved last year but Deputy Quaide said that many homeowners who were approved for the grant still haven’t had the gates installed and those that have are raising serious questions about the quality and height of the barriers.

The Social Democrats TD says the current approach is “too disjointed and slow” and he’s calling for one overall agency to coordinate all aspects of flood management. If clear progress isn’t made, he predicts discontent with Cork County Council and the OPW will grow in East Cork.

Meanwhile, the Midleton and East Cork Flood Protection Group is launching a community-based initiative to recruit local volunteers to help vulnerable and elderly people if another flood occurs. An information evening will be held in the Talbot Hotel in Midleton on Monday September 1 at 8 pm.