Danny Healy Rae, TD has sent the following response to Kerry County Council Director of Services, Charlie O’Sullivan’s announcement that the council would not proceed on an application for funding to the Office of Public Works for flood relief in Castleisland under the minor works flood relief programme.
The council feared, Mr. O’Sullivan said, that carrying out the work in designated breaches on the rivers here would flood other areas and leave the local authority open to claims for damages from the public.
Mr. O’Sullivan made the council’s position known in a letter to all the politicians representing the Killarney Municipal District – of which Castleisland is part.
Alleviation Works
Deputy Healy Rae rejects this approach, however, and is urging Mr. O’Sullivan and the council to go ahead with the funding application and a selected programme of alleviation works which he and may locals have been lobbying for over the years.
Deputy Danny Healy Rae’s Letter is as follows:
Following my request I am glad that Minister Boxer Moran visited Castleisland last July to hear and see first hand problems in relation to flooding in and around the town.
Both myself and Maura Healy Rae specifically asked the Minister to give us funding for the Shanowen River which had been identified as the cause of flooding the Castleisland Community College and houses in between the college and the Scartaglin Road.
We pointed out that the embankment and the actual bank of the river were now inside in the middle of the river blocking the water and sending it down into the college and the entire Tonbwee Area.
Funding Would be Allocated
Minister Moran promised us and Charlie O’Sullivan, Director of Services that if Kerry Coounty Council made an application for this under the minor works flood relief programme that he would allocate funding immediately to deal with this specific problem.
Regretfully, in the last few days Charlie O’Sullivan issued a letter to myself and Maura and all the other members of the Municipal Area that he will not make an application for funding for this problem.
Downstream Flooding
The reason he is giving is that other areas downstream may get flooded then.
I don’t believe that what we are asking will flood any other area downstream as what we are asking is only to repair the bank above the college and to put it back the way it was before it fell into the river.
It is very unsatisfactory to think now that the college and those houses in Tonbwee that got flooded before may get flooded again despite the fact that an offer was made by Minister Boxer Moran to provide funding to prevent future flooding.
Reverse the Decision
I am appealing now to Kerry Co Council and Charlie O’Sullivan to reverse their decision to refuse making an application for funding and to apply immediately for the funding that was promised, in relation to the Glounsharoon River.
I have got an assurance that the part that passes Crag Cave will be cleared out annually and has been done in October of this year again to prevent the flooding of the caves and extra water ending up in the Kilbanivane and Churchtown areas.
Maher’s Farm
However, I have been asking Kerry Co Council for almost two years to clear the stretch of the Glounsharoon River down to Maher’s farm as it is again totally blocked by the river embankment falling into the middle of the river and is adding to or causing the flooding of Kilbanivane Graveyard.
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