Ignoring crisis will only keep trouble flooding in

I’ve been away in Paris for most of the past fortnight at the climate change conference – everybody I’ve met since coming back has been saying: “Oh, lucky you”.

And it’s nice to be away for work – but in truth this was like coming down to Galway for two weeks and spending every waking moment in the Parkmore Industrial Estate.

While I was there my friend Aodh Ó Coileán from Raidió na Gaeltachta texted me. Silken Kerryman that he is, his message read: “Faoi uisce anseo agus sibhse ansin ag caint faoi!”

(We’re under water here and ye are over there talking about it).

To quote a famous TV personality: “It’s all about the rain.”

And I’m half returning to climate change for a second week in a row; for that I beg your forgiveness.

In fact, the climate change talks was inextricably linked to that big story of last week, the extreme weather.

Indeed, it was also linked to the other major political story last week, the Prime Time expose of local councillors willing to accept money from developers.

First things first. It would be silly to say that the floods we have seen are directly linked to climate change. The response to that is, no, no, no.

Ireland is an island on the edge of the Atlantic with extensive inland waterways and watercourses.

There is also a comparatively big proportion of the land mass which is bog (bog is Irish for soft which means soft marshy land). There are also many flood plains.

Anywhere you go and see ‘turlough’ in a place name, for example, (Turloughmore), that’s essentially land that floods over in winter.

Go into the heart of Galway City and you quickly discover that Flood Street was not given that name for nothing.

Once the sea and the Corrib breach the protective walls at the Spanish Arch, there’s only one direction the water will go.

Early on Tuesday morning I drove from Dublin to Galway and it was astounding to see how much of the country side was under water.

As I passed through Athlone, the Shannon looked nothing like a river, more like a lake. It was the same for the River Suck on the Ballinasloe bypass.

Such breaches and floods were replicated in many places over the past sodden fortnight.

Six years ago, in November 2009, there was extensive flooding too.

I was dispatched to Athlone to report on a visit by then-Taoiseach Brian Cowen to an estate on the Connacht side, where 92 houses had been flooded.

As befitted his disastrous style as Taoiseach, Cowen visited one house, had one short conversation, and drove off before meeting any other affected householders.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.