Almost two and a half years after flood waters devastated areas of south Mayo, the Government has finally granted funding for works at three of the worst sites.
However while the €210,000 funding has been welcomed locally by Cllr Patsy O’Brien, he said it was a long way short of the €5 million needed.
The funding will be spent at Creevagh, The Neale, on drainage works and at Muckrussaun, The Neale, and Derries, Cross, on road raising and road reconstruction works.
In total almost 50 areas of south Mayo were badly affected by the 2006 floods but some have already been dealt with through local authority funding and regional road funding, explained Cllr Damien Ryan, who has broadly welcomed this week’s funding announcement.
Cllr Ryan said the announcement was made following two meetings he had with Environment Minister Noel Dempsey, the last of which took place on November 29 last year.
During that meeting Minister Dempsey asked Cllr Ryan to identify the worst affected areas in south Mayo which the three local councillors did together. In addition to this the Office of Public Works (OPW ) carried out drainage works at Roundford which have alleviated problems in surrounding areas.
At both Muckrussaun and Derries 10 to 12 houses in each village were completely cut off during the 2006 flood, explained Cllr Ryan who thanked Minister Dempsey for honouring his commitment in a year of such economic uncertainty. The funding was granted under the Department’s local and regional road funding.
Previous attempts to secure Government funding in 2007 or 2008 were unsuccessful and this is the first offering towards necessary anti-flood works.
Both Cllr O’Brien and Cllr Ryan agreed that there are still areas of south Mayo that need addressing, including fallen walls at Creevagh.
