Over 31 million euro has been spent in flood protection works in Clare this decade.
The figure, one of the highest of any county in Ireland, comes on a week in which Storm Eleanor has brought flooding to many parts, most notably Galway City.
Clare FM’s James Mulhall reports.
Speaking in the aftermath of this week’s storm, Minister for the OPW Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran re-iterated his view that one billion euro is needed to adequately protect the country from flooding.
But new figures from his department show that would be on top of over 300 million euro spent on capital works related to flood protection in recent years.
The figures cover the cost of both major schemes and minor works, with the latter also containing the allocations of funding that followed the storms of early 2014, in which Clare was badly affected.
In total, from 2011 to 2017, over 31 million euro has been allocated for flood defences in Clare.
Only Cork and Wicklow have received more, but many more millions are still required.
In 2016, the OPW’s own CFRAM study found over 1500 premises in Clare are at risk of flooding, and that protection works would cost over 50 million euro.
