Flood-hit residents of Cork region to mount protest at Council over slow pace of relief works

By Peter McCarthy, Corkman

East Cork residents whose properties were flooded during Storm Babet two years ago are holding a protest outside Cork County Hall next week to protest against what they say is the slow progress of flood relief works.

The Midleton and East Cork Flood Protection Group and Mogeely Flood Protection will mount the protest on Monday September 22 before a meeting of Cork County Council. The groups are also planning a protest in Midleton on October 18, the second anniversary of the deluge.

Midleton experienced massive flooding in the aftermath of the storm in October 2023 but neighbouring communities in Mogeely, Rathcormac, Castlemartyr, Ladysbridge, Whitegate and Killeagh were also hit.

Caroline Leahy of the Midleton & East Cork Flood Protection Group told the Irish Independent that “we're two years on and very, very, little has been done on the ground to give us protection since the storm event.”

She said the only works carried out in Midleton in the past two years have been “a little bit of dredging in two small sections of the river” and an industrial-sized sandbag wall on the bank of the river to protect one estate. “But other than that there has been nothing done. There isn't anything really that's changed between now and 2023.”

Ms Leahy said next week’s protest is aimed at “bringing people from this community to the people that are making the decisions so that they’re seen and ideally it would put a little bit of fire in people's bellies and make them move a little bit faster towards getting some sort of protection on the ground.”

There is a €55m plan for a major flood relief scheme for Midleton but the scheduled finish date is 2032. Interim efforts have included a Cork County Council/OPW scheme to provide expandable barriers to keep floodwaters out of homes.

However, locals have criticised the scheme’s rollout as too slow and have questioned whether the barriers are high enough. The barriers also won’t provide any protection for timber-framed houses.

“People have no faith in the barriers that have been delivered. Clearly that rollout hasn't worked the way they planned. And they've only delivered the expandable ones, which don’t fit every door,” Ms Leahy said.

The council has blamed the slow rollout on a poor market response to both supplying the barriers and carrying out the building works required. The local authority says that 2,003 barriers are needed in East Cork and to date 344 have been delivered along with a quarter of the necessary building works.