Heavy rain has caused significant flooding in parts of the southeast with more than 30mm recorded in some areas of Waterford and Kilkenny.
Video footage posted by Alan O’Reilly of the CarlowWeather Twitter account showed the playground of one Kilkenny school flooded with the students requiring assistance in leaving the building on Monday morning.
Students in Inistioge had to be evacuated after the river Nore burst its banks due to a deluge of rain.
Fire service assisted students to leave St Colmcille’s National School due to rising water levels.
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A spokesperson for St Colmcille’s said that “everyone is fine” and that all the students had gone home. “The fire services are here helping us out thankfully but everyone is fine,” the spokesperson added.
Waterford was hit particularly hard by the severe rainfall with significant flooding reported across the county as the area remains under an orange rain alert.
The Fairybush to Woodstown road has been closed as a result of heavy accumulations of water there while there has also been significant flooding reported on the Dunmore Rd at Hickey’s Cross and at Knockboy.
Images posted on social media show that Ferrybank, near the Rockshire Rd, has suffered a significant amount of flooding while surface water has also been reported on the Cork road leading out of Waterford City. There is also flooding at Lisduggan, at Faithlegg Church, at Jack Meade’s pub and on the inner Cork Road.
In Wexford, Craanford a village situated midway between Gorey and Carnew in Co Wicklow, also experienced flooding on Monday night.
Waterford City and County Council’s ground crews have been deployed to deal with issues as they arise, such as localised flooding, blocked drains and gulley overflows, and it has advised the public to exercise caution as driving conditions may be hazardous.
A status orange rain warning from Met Éireann is in place for Waterford with both Wexford and Kilkenny also facing the same level of threat until 1am on Tuesday.
Much of the rest of the country covered by a status yellow rain warning for the early part of the week.
People in the areas of Cork which were badly hit by flooding in recent days have been told to be particularly vigilant by Cork County Council.
“Cork County Council is asking areas which were impacted by recent flood events to be conscious of the risk of possible future flooding,” the council said in a statement.
“Residents in flood-prone areas who have previously been issued with sandbags are advised to take all necessary precautions, considering the forecast.
“Although river levels have dropped over recent days, levels remain elevated. The advice is therefore for people to remain vigilant. Localised heavy downpours are expected, the exact location of which is unknown. It should be noted that surface water drainage systems have limited capacity and localised downpours and flash flooding may overwhelm drainage systems, even where they have been fully cleared. There is also a likelihood of surface water flooding on already saturated ground conditions,” the council statement said.
The rain will gradually spread further to the north and east this afternoon followed by a mix of cloud and isolated showers pushing in from the southwest with temperatures reaching between 10 and 14 degrees.
The rain will continue to affect the north and east of the country into Monday night with scattered showers elsewhere.
Tuesday will bring a mix of cloud and scattered showers but some dry spells at times too with the showers becoming more isolated during the afternoon with some sunny spells developing.
By the middle of the week, however, the rain will return, first to Munster before gradually spreading northeast across the country later on Wednesday with the possibility of heavy and thundery falls and spot flooding.
Thursday will be cloudy with scattered showers, some heavy in the west with the early indications for the weekend suggesting more unsettled weather with showers forecast for most counties, some possibly heavy at times too and temperatures likely to reach the low teens.
Elsewhere, the secretary general of the Irish Red Cross, which will administer the Government’s flood humanitarian fund, said the organisation has briefed the Government on what funds will be required to assist businesses impacted by the floods in east Cork last week following Storm Babet.
Deirdre Garvey told RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland the Red Cross anticipated the Government would increase the volume of funds required, which could then be dispersed later this week.
“We have clarified exactly what the process will be. This is a process that we’ve used before. What we are waiting for is the absolute financial limits and any exceptional cases that are mentioned.
“So for businesses affected by this, there’s a very simple response and we make it easy for businesses. There’s one email address. It’s called emergencyflooding@redcross.ie. As soon as that decision is made by Cabinet, we get the nod and the form with the details finalised, details will go up on our website. It’s a PDF document,” she said.
“Each business simply needs to download that form, fill in their particulars, including their tax status and other details about lack of insurance, for example, because it is a scheme that heretofore has been for those businesses, who through no fault of their own, have not been able to get insurance.
“They can gather the relevant normal information now and once they fill in that form and get it back to us, what we will do then is verify that very quickly with the local authority to make sure that this business with this name and this address is a verified business as per the local knowledge of the local authorities,” she said.
“Once that comes back to us, we will make that first payment, it could be €5,000, it could be €10,000. We’re going to await the figure for that first payment. So it is theoretically possible that we hear [the amount] on Tuesday from Cabinet ... it is quite possible that we can get those first payments out this week. There’s no real reason to prevent that.
“It’s the businesses just giving us the information, the local authority verifying that we’ll get those payments out.” Ms Garvey said,
She added the Red Cross is awaiting clarification from the Government on whether it wants them to run the existing scheme and the exceptional scheme in parallel, or whether they will be integrated in some way. The Red Cross system allows for both, she said.
The Red Cross scheme is for businesses, while householders have access to a scheme that is run and administered by the Department of Social Protection, explained Ms Garvey. “It is called the Humanitarian Assistance Program and there is a freephone number on the website there if people want to Google that. And I think Minister Humphreys has been very clear, that scheme is already open.” - Additional reporting Sarah Slater
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