This article is from page 10 of the 2010-01-12 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 10 JPG
CLARE County Council still needs more then €3 million to balance its books after the devastation reeked on the county during last month’s flood- ing.
The local authority was last month granted more than €1.1 million by the Department of the Environment to pay for the extra expenses incurred during the massive flood efforts in the county in December.
However, it has emerged that this money will only cover the direct cost of the actions taken during the flood- ing and will not stretch far enough to repair any of the damage to infra- structure. This will cost an estimated €3 million, which the local authority last week contacted the Department
of the Environment about securing. It is not clear yet how much, if any, of this money will be made available from central government.
“The estimates involved in relation to the flooding has amounted to €3 million. The first allocation made before Christmas was just in relation to the management of the council in managing the flooding,’ said County Manager, Tom Coughlan
“The €700,000 estimate in Decem- ber was just an early estimate and when that was all added up it came to €1.145 million, all of which has been recouped by the council. The next issue is the damage which was cause by the flooding and that is the €3 million, which has gone to the department and we are not sure what will happen with that at this stage.”