Schoolchildren in parts of south Mayo are making a 46 mile return trip to get to school each day, according to one local councillor. Ballinrobe based Fianna Fáil councillor Damien Ryan told the Mayo Advertiser this week: "In The Neale in one area, it was a mile trip to bring the children to school, it's now 11 miles. I know of other villages where they have to go out 23 or 24 miles to school and back.
"They'd be in Galway city the length of time it takes them to go to school. That has been the case since before Christmas. Because of the road network that's flooded the kids are making a 46 mile return trip to school, Creevagh and Collisduff they go from Creevagh to Kilmaine, into Ballinrobe out out to Lough Mask and into Cong to get to the Neale. It's ridiculous, they would be nearly in Galway city the journey they have to make every evening."
Large swathes of south Mayo have been underwater since Storm Desmond hit in early December and little has changed since then, according to Cllr Ryan. "To be quite honest it hasn't changed a bit really, the water levels may have receded a bit, but all the roads that were flooded and the number of houses that were flooded, that's the same scenario, and the ones that are under threat are in the exact same situation as they were."
Cllr Ryan said that a wide range of solutions will have to be found to ensure that the flooding doesn't happen again and that all options need to be looked at. "There is a range of measures that will need to be carried out and the local authority at the moment are putting together a submission for the south of the county. There has been consultation between council management and the coucillors in the area. They have looked at it at its worst and they are looking at options, as in road raising and obviously and where houses are under threat, particularly in areas like the Neale there will have to be a pumping station and nothing less will do to solve it. If they decided to pump from the areas that are affected most it will affect the water tables in the surrounding areas. They need to look at the levels of the Mask and the Corrib and the canal that connects both, because the canal is having an adverse effect and we need to look at obstacles that may lie along that path that connects the Mask and the Corrib."
The Fianna Fáil councillor said that action was needed by all Government agencies on the ground, not reports to be carried out. "I've had it head on with OPW before and I'll have it again, they have done nothing. They'll go on about this one in 100 years flood, and reports are reports. I'm sick of them. The work has to be done, nothing less now is good enough."
He added: "The OPW has had no consultation with me as an elected representative and I have had no correspondence with them, I've been working with council management. If the OPW are at our next meeting, and we did ask for it in December, they need to listen to us as local representatives. We're not making the case and shouting at them for no reason. It's because the people we represent feel that there is nothing being done. To be honest, they may be tied with Habitats Directives and legislation, but I think it's time that the common good has to prevail above everything and anything else. People's lives are being affected, and they are more important than any legislation or directive. National Government at European Level needs to make the case that people are living in deplorable conditions and we have to be able to do what needs be done."
