A Donegal County Councillor has blamed the overnight flooding in East Donegal at the door of Donegal County Council.
A number of areas including Raphoe and Castlefin are counting the cost this morning after houses, shops and streets were overcome by heavy rain.
Coyle’s Centra store in Raphoe was under water last night as the town counted the cost of torrential rain despite the brave attempts of locals and the emergency services.
This morning, local Finn Valley county councillor Patrick McGowan was not holding back.
Councillor McGowan said “We need simple measures like keeping street gullies clear of debris, installing more gullies where they are actually needed and ensuring that water can run into qullies and drains not pool beside them. It’s not rocket science.”
He added the Council must also work along with land owners to help with ongoing drainage issues and if necessary supply pipe, etc.
He fumed “It should be back to basics for Council Management and they should take a hard look at what’s going on around them, less time spent in offices and get out and see what going on.
“The road workers and emergency services are faced with the aftermath of bad decision making and are to be praised for having to go to the same well-known locations time and again to do cleanups and repairs that were caused by known problems.
“This time it was Castlefin , Raphoe and Drumfergus but the next time it could be anywhere . Fail to plan then plan to fail.”
He added that while there are major flood relief schemes being surveyed and designed for Castlefin, Ballybofey, Stranorlar, Lifford and Raphoe as well as several other area across the county, it is essential that routine maintenance is not ignored.
He revealed that flooding at Drumfergus in Killygordon earlier this year totally washed away about a long stretch of road surface and the local road office quickly built up the road again with underlay and retarred it but did nothing to tackle the obvious causes of flooding.
“This was a waste of taxpayers money as this area was flooded again on Saturday evening, not to mention the damage and stress causes to local home and property owners.”
