Minister for the Environment, John Gormley has defended the handling of the flood crisis in Cork and insisted the focus must now be on restoring water supplies to some 80,000 people as Fine Gael called for an independent inquiry into the cause of the flooding.
Mr Gormley visited the flood damaged areas in the city on Saturday morning and insisted that the local emergency plan had worked well and he praised all those involved in the emergency services for their work over the previous 48 hours.
But Mr Gormley refused to be drawn into the controversy over the ESB's decision to release water from Inniscarra Dam eight miles upstream which precipated the flooding of large parts of the western side of the city to depths of over a metre in places..
Asked about the views of local residents on Lancaster Quay who criticised the ESB for failing to provide proper warning to them of the impending release of water from Inniscarra Dam, Mr Gormley insisted that the local emergency plan had worked well for the city.
"They (the ESB) co-operated fully with the emergency plan," said Mr Gormley who pointed out the ESB had confirmed in its statement it had informed Cork City Council, Cork County Council and the emergency services early on Thursday morning and issued a media alert.
In its statement, the ESB 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".
Asked if the ESB had done enough by simply informing the local authorities, Mr Gormley replied "that was in the context of the emergency plan and emergency planning has worked. Now is not the time for recriminations, now is the time to get on and deal with the issue".
However Fine Gael spokesman on the environment, Phil Hogan said that Mr Gormley should establish an independent inquiry into the cause of the flooding including looking at the role of local authorities and the ESB in monitoring rainfall and water levels in the river Lee.
"It's clear that substantial resources will be required by Cork city and county local authorities to deal with the extensive damage to infrastructure in the region, as well as damage to property, householders and businesses," said Mr Hogan who visited Cork on Saturday.
Mr Hogan said that Fine Gael will this week bring forward a Private Members' Motion which proposes the development of a national flood warning system which would ensure that people are given an optimum amount of warning to prepare their homes and businesses.
However Mr Gormley's view that the focus should be on providing immediate relief was echoed by Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin who defended Cork City Council's amid criticism from some business owners that the council did not provide sandbags.
"There were sandbags delivered by the army yesterday. They all work together. what's fundemental is that we support those at the coalface at the moment - there was prioritization when this thing was at its peak - the most important thing was the Mercy hospital."
Cork City Manager, Joe Gavin adopted a similar position when asked whether the ESB had given an indication of the impact of releasing such a large volume of water could have and he said that the council's focus was very much on addressing the effects of the flooding.
"We now want to concentrate all resources and energies on the consequences of what happened. There will be time enough to look and improve what happened when this crisis is over so we won't be looking at those kind of issues at this stage.
"The tide had no impact on what happened this weekend. It was solely down to the volume that came down the river on foot of the volume of rain that fell.The ESB said it was an event that could happen once in 800 years, it was absolutely unprecedented"
