Longford councillors call for OPW to reintroduce drainage schemes in Longford

Cllr Micheál Carrigy issued a motion at a recent meeting of Longford county council, calling on the OPW to provide funding to help combat flooding issues in parts of the county.

He said, “I call on the OPW to provide funding similar to the Local improvement scheme to clean the various small rivers throughout the country.”

He added, “A lot of the tributaries of the River Camlin are not on the Camlin drainage or any scheme, which they would have been prior to 2014.”

Cllr Carrigy then called for the reintroduction of said schemes, where local authorities worked alongside landowners and householders.

“I just feel that the local improvement scheme has proven successful, where the landowners or householders pay a certain contribution to the works carried out with the local authority.”

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Paraic Brady seconded the motion, praising the impact of the schemes previously in place.

He noted, “We used to see a drainage scheme in place where they (OPW) cleaned up the drains.

“It was an ongoing drainage scheme that went on from year to year. In the last seven or eight years when this was abandoned, all the flooding has reoccurred in that North Longford area.

“It is all because of the disbandment of that scheme.”

He then reiterated calls for the OPW to reintroduce previous drainage work schemes.

He said, “There was a great rapport with the farmers who were letting in the OPW to clean these rivers in the past and if that was brought back again, certainly we would have a lot less flooding on our roads and a lot less flooding and damage done to property.

“I hope the OPW might look at bringing schemes back in to clean these tributaries.”

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