County Council's Own Goal

23rd Nov 2009

County Council Own Goal

County Hall closed on Friday.

The county was hit hard by floods over the last ten days and the emergency services and the many volunteers who helped out must be commended for their hard work in difficult conditions.

Thankfully, while many of us are still without running water, there have been no serious injuries - dry taps being a relatively mild inconvenience in the greater scheme of things. Had this happened in a developing country deaths would probably have been inevitable.

When the clean up is finished investigations must focus on the apparent lack of communication between those at the Inniscarra dam and authorities in the city when a decision was made to dump over 535 tonnes of water per second into the Lee thus swamping the city late on Thursday night. The ESB say they contacted city and county councils to warn them. The councils are strangely saying nothing for now.

Many books at the County Library as well as documents in the basement of County Hall have been destroyed at huge expense.

Workers in the latter were told to go home at 3.30pm last Thursday but why wasn't a small team of volunteers from the large staff assembled to lug valuable property from the lower levels to higher levels and to help out at the library nearby?

Many workers would have been happy to put their shoulders to the wheel in a time of need and show that they are dedicated to the public service.

Not anticipating that the flood waters would rise so high is not a good enough excuse as the tax payer now picks up the tab for some avoidable loss. This apparent own-goal seems bafflingly basic for well remunerated management who were, incidentally, due to go on strike on Tuesday.

The old mantra of 'fail to prepare, prepare to fail' may be the costly conclusion.

Below are some photos by unknown photographers we were sent by email....