{"id":658446,"date":"2026-10-18T13:30:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T13:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/658446\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T13:30:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T13:30:16","slug":"people-are-afraid-it-will-happen-again-hundreds-protest-lack-of-flooding-action-in-midleton-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/658446\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018People are afraid it will happen again\u2019: Hundreds protest lack of flooding action in Midleton \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Close to 500 people attended a protest on Saturday organised by a flood<\/a> protection group in Midleton, Co Cork<\/a>, to highlight what they describe as \u201cthe lack of any meaningful protections\u201d given to the community since Storm Babet devastated the area in 2023. <\/p>\n

Extreme rainfall in Midleton and other parts of east Cork in October 2023 led to flooding<\/a> of houses and businesses.<\/p>\n

The force of the deluge caused the front window of a hairdressing salon in the town to shatter, while flooding was 1.5m deep in some places. <\/p>\n

The flooding event caused up to \u20ac200 million in damage to businesses and homes in the town. <\/p>\n

Members of the Midleton and East Cork Flood Protection Group said they are still years away from full protection against flooding in the region.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0The floods will overwhelm Irish land. We can\u2019t just sit backOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Mona Stromsoe, spokeswoman for the group, told Cork\u2019s 96FM that they feel just as vulnerable to flooding as they were in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were expecting the flooding defence scheme for Midleton to go to planning at the end of September.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs recently as July we were told it was on track to go to planning at the end of September. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat didn\u2019t happen and we were told by the Minister [Kevin \u2018Boxer\u2019 Moran] that it wouldn\u2019t happen until the end of Q4. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the fourth date we have had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stromsoe said people previously impacted by flooding in east Cork remain fearful of a repeat episode.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey think, \u2018Is today the day?\u2019 We saw in Killarney during the summer that it was just one day of rain and they were flooded. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are afraid it will happen again and it will be as bad as Babet.\u201d<\/p>\n

The protest took place on Saturday in Midleton and involved groups of people from the town and nearby areas such as Mogeely, Killeagh and Castlemartyr. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Is Ireland ready for a monster El Nino? Expect ugly potatoes, transport chaos and widespread disruptionOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Earlier this month Minister of State Kevin \u201cBoxer\u201d Moran announced \u20ac1.1 million in funding for interim and flood mitigation measures in Mogeely, Castlemartyr, Ratchcormac and Ballintubber.<\/p>\n

The Minister said the announcement was part of an overall \u20ac14 million allocation to Midleton and east Cork to address and mitigate the flood risk in the region.<\/p>\n

He said a further \u20ac5.8 million investment is enabling advance works in Tir Cluain, Midleton, to proceed to construction from spring next year. These works will protect 135 properties.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018If we flood again, we\u2019re homeless\u2019: Midleton homeowners in crisis without flood insurance after stormsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Moran said Cork County Council is due to receive the final planning engineering and environmental assessment documents for the overall flood defence scheme from its consultants this month.<\/p>\n

He said this will allow the council to make a planning application for the Midleton Flood Relief Scheme to An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la by the end of the year, which would protect 750 properties and all of those impacted by Storm Babet. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Close to 500 people attended a protest on Saturday organised by a flood protection group in Midleton, Co…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[46,63,849,61,60,84698,30122,43,18335],"class_list":["post-658446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork","tag-cork-county-council","tag-floods","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kevin-boxer-moran","tag-midleton","tag-news","tag-weather-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658446","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=658446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}