Sir, - With each new Met Éireann warning about heavy rain and flooding, there is a sense of weary familiarity rather than genuine surprise. Alerts are issued, statements made and emergency plans referenced, as if Ireland were encountering an unforeseen challenge rather than a recurring feature of winter life dominated by the Atlantic Ocean.
At ground level, the reality is straightforward. Ireland is a wet country. Prolonged rainfall, swollen rivers and saturated ground are neither rare nor recent developments. Flooding, pressure on infrastructure and disruption to daily life have long been predictable consequences of our climate.
What is far less understandable is the absence of sustained action to address risks that have been clearly identified for decades.
Each winter, severe weather is framed as exceptional, and responsibility diluted by appeals to forces beyond human control. Yet repeated reports have warned of inadequate flood defences, poor drainage, planning decisions that ignore flood plains and a lack of long-term investment in infrastructure. These warnings were neither sudden nor unclear.
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For the past 20 years, the country has been governed by a Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil majority. During that time, strategies were announced, studies commissioned and commitments made to protect vulnerable communities. Despite this, the same towns repeatedly find themselves under water, while emergency responses substitute for prevention. Once the immediate crisis passes, accountability fades and attention shifts elsewhere.
The pattern is now well established. Summer arrives, rainfall eases and urgency drains away with the floodwaters. Flooding slips down the list of political priorities, only to reappear the following winter as though it were newly discovered rather than the result of delayed decisions and deferred responsibility.
The next major flood may affect Midleton again, or another town will join the growing list of communities learning the same hard lesson. This will be decided by two forces only: Mother Nature or government action. If experience is any guide, my money remains firmly on the former. - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL O’MEARA,
Fenor,
Co Waterford.
