Galway flooding issues raised in Seanad

Problems created by the recent flooding in Galway were raised in the Upper House by Senators Hildegarde Naughton, Fidelma Healy Eames and Lorraine Higgins.

Senator Naughton said she wished to raise the issue of the lack of insurance cover.

“I will use Claregalway as an example,” she said. “Parts of that area were flooded in 2009 and the properties there have been uninsurable since. While it is vital that the Clare river flood works commence as soon as possible, it is also vital that when they are complete, these people will get insurance. Many of the houses I visited were bought during the so-called boom. They are very expensive, the mortgages on them are enormous and many properties are, to all intents and purposes, worthless. I welcome the meeting the Taoiseach and the Minister of State held with the insurance industry. It was a very worthwhile exercise. One cannot expect an insurer to insure a house that is prone to flooding. Insurance is an estimation of risk and some of these homes are always at risk and uninsurable. We should, however, expect the insurance industry to insure houses that have been subject to proper flood alleviation works.”

Senator Healy Eames said she was very concerned about the humanitarian fund and that it might be means tested. “This happened after 2009, when people failed to get the support they needed,” she said. “There was one loss of life - through suicide - as a result of the very slow relocation process and this is well known locally. It really saddened me that, although every public representative in Galway represented that family for three years, as soon as the loss of life happened the family got the home.”

She said there was a need to incentivise our farmers to be flood protectors because the farmers own the land and there is a lot of goodwill out there to improve this.

Senator Higgins raised the possibility of Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) contributing to compensation for the area most affected. “I am particularly thinking of Labane, Cahermore, Ballinstague and all the way to Kinvara,” she said. “It is plausible to assume that TII exacerbated the floods in Labane, Ardrahan and Ballinstague, given the interference with the geology of the area and the fact that there has possibly been some re-engineering of the drainage in the area in order to allow the motorway to go ahead. Somebody mentioned to me that they were going through a succession of turloughs in the area.”