Developers and councils dispute responsibility as distressed residents evacuate their homes, writes ALISON HEALYin Sallins
A YOUNG woman shook her head in disbelief as her Nissan Micra was towed through the water out of her apartment complex in Sallins, Co Kildare. Water continued to seep from the doors of the car 10 minutes after it stood on dry ground.
Too upset to talk, she bit her lip as her sodden laptop bag and a basket of CDs were loaded on to a trailer. She was one of many residents of the aptly-named Waterways estate who spent yesterday making forays through the water to rescue belongings. On the previous night, Civil Defence volunteers had pumped water out of the estate for 2½ hours.
Two Army trucks arrived at about 11am yesterday to ferry the residents through the water. Earlier, they had been wading up and down alone, carrying black bags of clothes and other belongings as the water lapped around their thighs.
“I don’t want to go back in there,” said Elaine Mangan, who confronted Minister for the Environment John Gormley when she appeared on The Frontline with Pat Kenny on Monday night.
“But I have to get in there to take the photographs of my children off the walls,” she said and began crying at the thought of it. “I’ll never get over having to hand a five-month-old baby out the window.”
Residents gathered around her, commiserating and worrying that their homes might be broken into. Gary Behan arrived with his pregnant partner Karen Dunne to survey the damage. “The whole downstairs is just a total write-off. There’s couches floating around in the house, fridges, everything destroyed.”
Local people were rallying around, said Tony Gavin, chairman of Sallins Community Council. A meeting had been held to organise volunteers and a fund-raiser was being planned.
Blame for the flooding was being passed between the developers, property management agents and Kildare County Council yesterday. The developers are Pearse Gately and Tony Killarney, whose GK Buildings went into receivership in May.
Mr Killarney told The Irish Times many of his friends had bought properties at Waterways and he had “massive sympathy” for the residents. However, he rejected claims that the homes should never have been built on the former pitch-and-putt course. “We were building for five years down there and we never saw any problem with water.”
He said the area had flooded because culverts were blocked. If the drainage issue outside the complex was resolved, the homes would not flood again, he said.
Mr Killarney said the site was zoned for residential use when his company bought it “so the council engineers had obviously approved it for building on”. It was approved a second time by the council when planning permission was granted. Mr Killarney said the developers had paid “a lot of development levies” to the council and it was the council’s duty to deal with issues outside the development. Peter Wyse, of Wyse property management agents, also laid the blame with the council. He said his office had contacted the council several times to advise of the drainage problems at the rear of the site.
However, council spokesman Charlie Talbot insisted drainage issues were a matter for the developer and/or the property management company because it was a private estate. He said the council was assisting in every way it could as a humanitarian gesture but it was not responsible for the crisis. It had given permission for a drain to be constructed to release the water and it continued to drain away last night.