There are calls for a proper flood plan for Carrick-on-Suir.
The town was the first in the county to get flood walls, which Cathaoirleach of the District Kieran Bourke says have worked very well to date but are support by Pumping Stations that have failed on occasion.
At a recent meeting Director of Seric Brian Beck told members that there were a number measures put in place alleviate and prevent flooding in the area including the flushing of silt from the network.
However, Cllr. Bourke says that more needs to be done to address the issues with the Water Treatment plant, which he says doesn’t have the required capacity:
“No-body is addressing the treatment plant, when they built the treatment plant they purchased extra land and the reason they purchased this extra land was in the event that he treatment plant ever needs to be extended to increase capacity that is why the land was purchased and I think it is now time Irish Water starts to look at that. We can do all the cleaning out of pipes that we like but until we address the Treatment plant we wont be addressing the elephant in the room ,that’s what I think.”
There also needs to be better clarity around the points of contact when there are flood issues in Tipperary at a weekend.
Kieran Bourke, says that recently there was an issue on Mill Street when one house was flooded due to manholes being covered by sandbags, and although it was resolved by the contractors residents were unsure who to contact.
Cllr. Bourke says there was only Garda on duty that day, and all calls to the council ended up going to a national centre, he feels this is unacceptable:
“In my opinion all these things need to be corrected I think we need to look at the emergency number, where people can ring because the residents effected in Mill Street that Saturday morning hadn’t a clue who to ring, the Gardaí didn’t have a clue who to ring so they started ringing Tipperary county council workers out of hours to see could we get through to them and they were very accommodating let me say but, that is not good enough.”
