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Category: Archive

Going under

February 17, 2011

By Staff Reporter

Ireland, drowning in red ink, facing strikes and a budget to beat them all in a few days, has been tormented by an old familiar: rain.
But rain in amounts that even the hard bitten inhabitants of the island are unfamiliar with. One woman who spoke to the Echo on Tuesday described the situation in Cork City succinctly.
“Washington Street is a river,” she said.
In the face of the crisis, Taoiseach Brian Cowen has confirmed that the government will respond to the ongoing flooding crisis in cases here where humanitarian aid is required. Cowen, who visited parts of the waterlogged South and West of Ireland on Monday, indicated that ministers would be discussing how to help those most severely affected.
A crisis summit of the government’s Emergency Task Force was told at the weekend as hundreds of people were left homeless with tens of thousands of acres under water. 50,000 people in Cork City were without drinking water, businesses went bankrupt, and farmers were facing a feed crisis that will last months.
And flood alerts remain in place this week following overnight rain on Monday with further rainfall forecast. The flood repair bill, at this juncture, could exceed

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