This article is from page 13 of the 2009-12-01 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 13 JPG
THE last two weeks will define the life of Mike Finn – for better or for 0) Toe
Like many other people on Gort’s Crowe Street he has lost everything in the flood. The undiscriminating waters took it all, his livelihood and the business that has been in his fam- ily for generations. A life’s work sim- ply washed away.
Like most other people on Crowe Street Mike has no insurance – no insurance company would have him after the floods in 1995 – and he now stands to loose an estimated €1 mil- lion from the latest set back.
‘The business in closed and I have no appetite at the moment to ever open it again. It’s heartbreaking to see it all. Heartbreaking,” he said.
“It’s not getting any better, not for the near future anyway. Long term it is still not good. We have great work done here, everyone is helping out, everyone wants to help get us out of this mess – but it’s frightening.
“We were let down at the start of this. We were let down by our local engineer and the local guards but I don’t think they realised the scale of the problem. Since then though they have come on board.
“T’m tired of giving out, I’m not go- ing to give out anymore, we need to get on with it and do the best that we can. It’s a natural disaster in the area,
it should never have happened and it should never happen again. But there is nothing being done to prevent this happening next year or the year af- oe
“If we can get some sort of drain sorted out between here and Kinvara then that would be a solution. There
are houses marooned under 12 feet of water, cattle gone out of sheds, the fodder is gone and the sheds them- selves are gone.”
For many people affected by repeat- ed flooding there is simply nowhere to turn, as the insurance companies will refuse to re-insure someone who
has previously made a claim.
According to Mike, the €10 mil- lion allocated by the Government to tackle the flooding will be just a frac- tion of the eventual cost.
“It’s bad, I need something from somewhere, I need to sort out myself and I need to sort out my family. I
need funding, and I don’t need it next month, I need it now,” he continued.
‘There doesn’t seem to be any an- Swers out there. Brian Cowen going out around the country in a pair of shoes is not the answer. He doesn’t need to go around the country, all he needs to do is turn on his TV – he needs to go out to Europe and get funding to fix this.
“We are sending out funds to every country in the world and we can’t Support our own people. It’s the peo- ple on the ground who are working very, very hard to sort this out and we are not here to be giving out.
“We are in the middle of a reces- sion and the last thing that we needed was to be hit by this natural disaster.
“We have no flood insurance here since the flooding in 1995 but we still pay high rates. I pay nearly €14,000 a year in rates and what happens? The place is distroyed for a second time. That shouldn’t happen. The council needs to protect the town from some- thing like this.
““T have no insurance, no one would insure me after the last time, I’m to- tally wiped out. I don’t think that a million euro would be enough to sort me out at this stage; the building has to go.”