Cork County Council insisted it was “acutely aware” of flooding fears amongst residents of east Cork where a comprehensive flood defence scheme is not expected to be completed for almost another decade.<\/p>\n
Homeowners and business operators demanded urgent action on flood defences as they warned that any repeat of an apocalyptic weather event like Storm Babet in October 2023 could cost lives.<\/p>\n
The Midleton, Mogeely and East Cork Flood Protection Group said residents were worried that proper flood defences may not be installed in the area for another 10 years.<\/p>\n
Protests were staged outside Cork County Hall on Monday with further protests planned for east Cork next month.<\/p>\n
Homeowners and business operators said that flood defences should be a top priority for the council – and that too little has been done to protect against a disastrous repeat of Storm Babet.<\/p>\n
Locals warned it was a miracle no one was killed two years ago when some homes were swamped by flood waters which rose to near chest height in a matter of minutes.<\/p>\n
Storm Babet flooding was so sudden that several people including a pregnant woman were trapped in a beauty salon on Midleton’s main street – and only managed to escape out a back door and over a wall minutes before the front window collapsed under the weight of the flood waters.<\/p>\n
In a handful of cases, residents were swept off their feet by flood waters which rose in a matter of minutes \u2013 only for them to be saved by neighbours.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of homes were swamped by a combination of flood waters and the stinking wash from drains, sewers and septic tanks.<\/p>\n
However, Cork County Council insisted it was taking the flood threat seriously and that mitigation measures were in hand.<\/p>\n
“Cork County Council has committed significant resources to progress flood relief schemes and flood relief measures in Cork,” a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
“The council is continuing to progress the major Midleton Flood Relief Scheme on behalf of the Office of Public Works (OPW). The required Marine Area Consent application was submitted to the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority (MARA) in June 2025.”<\/p>\n
“The planning application for this major scheme is scheduled to be submitted to An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la in mid-2026. A planning application for advance works, which will provide protection to the scheme design level for 101 properties at Tir Cluain, will commence this week.”<\/p>\n
Council officials said the Individual Property Protection Scheme (IPPS) which will provide interim flood mitigation to 725 properties in Midleton and the wider East Cork area (including Rathcormac) is ongoing.”<\/p>\n
This will involve the construction of flood barriers for vulnerable homes.<\/p>\n
“However, due to the number of barriers required, the provision of these measures is being affected by challenging marketplace supply capacity.”<\/p>\n
“The council is also awaiting details of the recently announced OPW minor works scheme which will fund projects up to the value of \u20ac2m which could deliver substantial flood relief works for vulnerable areas.”<\/p>\n
Work is also ongoing on progressing flood relief schemes for Mogeely and Castlemartyr.<\/p>\n
“Other interim mitigation works, funded by OPW, were undertaken by Cork Co Council in 2024 and 2025 in areas affected by Storm Babet including Midleton, Castlemartyr, Killeagh and Rathcormac (where works are currently ongoing). Separately, Cork County Council has undertaken local drainage improvements in Rathcormac through climate resilience related funding.”<\/p>\n
Flood defence campaigner Caroline Leahy said people in east Cork cannot continue to live in fear of another apocalyptic flood.<\/p>\n
“We need the council to act and act fast,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It is nearly two years on from Storm Babet and we are still as exposed to such severe flooding as we were in October 2023.”<\/p>\n
“We are not going to sit around waiting for the next flood to destroy our homes and our businesses and literally to threaten our lives. Very, very little has improved over the past two years.”<\/p>\n
“There has been a small industrial sandbag wall in one housing estate. There has been a small amount of dredging but, other than that, there has been more reports, assessments and surveys.”<\/p>\n
“Areas outside of Midleton such as Castlemartyr, Mogeely, Killeagh and others are sitting and waiting – they do not even have start dates for their flood projects.”<\/p>\n
“The Midleton flood (defence) scheme is possibly ten years away from being completed and for what we face in Midleton, that is simply not good enough.”<\/p>\n
Some properties have been offered flood gates while drains and culverts have been kept free.<\/p>\n
However, residents said it is totally insufficient to cope with any repeat of Storm Babet.<\/p>\n
Residents also warned that, had the October 2023 rainfall coincided with high tide, the east Cork town would have faced a catastrophe with flood waters potentially even two metres higher.<\/p>\n
Storm Babet inflicted unprecedented damage on Midleton and Cork – with estimates of the cost of repairs and business losses reaching \u20ac200m.<\/p>\n
In Midleton and its surrounding area alone over 600 homes and 300 businesses suffered devastating damage.<\/p>\n
Some properties took months to repair.<\/p>\n
It was the second major bout of flooding to hit Midleton after major damage suffered following torrential rainfall and high tides in 2015.<\/p>\n
Storm Babet – over October 17-18 2023 – dumped record rainfall amounts over parts of Ireland.<\/p>\n
Some areas received three months worth of rain in less than 48 hours.<\/p>\n
Midleton, which has been waiting years for a flood relief scheme, suffered devastating damage as rivers broke their banks and culverts simply couldn’t cope with the enormous deluge.<\/p>\n
Caroline said people should not have to live in constant fear of another apocalyptic flood event.<\/p>\n
“We worry about it with every forecast of heavy rainfall,” she warned.<\/p>\n
“It never goes away – even in the summer, you are worried about the coming winter and what type of heavy rainfall it might bring.”<\/p>\n
“It is hanging over us all the time. We worried for our lives with what we faced with Storm Babet. It wasn’t a little bit of water coming in the door. It was an apocalyptic level of rainfall. The flooding was terrifying and we cannot face that again.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cork County Council insisted it was “acutely aware” of flooding fears amongst residents of east Cork where a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,898,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-45359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-latest-news-ticker","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}