INNISCARRA DAM DISPUTE:THE ESB has been accused of failing to give people adequate notice of its decision to open the Inniscarra Dam outside Cork – a move which caused unprecedented flooding in the city.
Dr Con Murphy, a GP whose practice on Mardyke Street was badly flooded, said yesterday he had no issue with the ESB having to release water from Inniscarra Dam. But, he said, “Why we weren’t warned bothers me . . . If we had been given a few hours notice, we could have done something to salvage things.”
The ESB rejected such criticism and said that following “unprecedented levels of water coming downstream” in the river Lee, large volumes of water had to be released from the dams in order to avoid “the certainty of larger and uncontrolled flooding”.
The ESB said it had informed the statutory bodies from early Thursday morning, as well as issuing a media alert.
