Micheál Martin says flooding of homes at Lough Funshinagh ‘a travesty’ as he hits out at environmental group

The Tánaiste met with Ellie McLaughlin, who had to flee her home with her three young children in the middle of the night.

He also met with other families who have had to abandon their homes and farms due to catastrophic flooding at Lough Funshinagh, the once idyllic turlough in Co Roscommon.

Brian and Mary Fallon, who are aged 80 and 79, had to leave their farmhouse just hours after their neighbour Ellie.

Roscommon County Council first sought to drain floodwater at the lake in June 2021 under emergency provisions in the Local Authorities (Works) Act 1949.

This was successfully challenged in the High Court by Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) citing EU law on habitats and other environmental protections given to the turlough as a special area of conservation. A second attempt by the council citing emergency provisions in the Planning and Development Act was again successfully challenged by FIE.

As part of the scheme, the council had proposed to construct a 3km pipeline, designed to take water from Lough Funshinagh, a seasonal lake 12km from Athlone, to nearby Lough Ree.

Speaking to the Irish Independent, the Tánaiste said there needed to be an understanding of the human impact of planning objections.

“I think it is absolutely disproportionate what has happened in terms of a legal objection to a pipe line that would have alleviated such hardship. It is difficult to comprehend how there is such a lack of balance in terms of progressing issues like this,” he said.

“Those organisations might blame county councils and the OPW. That’s not good enough. We are all responsible for our actions, and in order to have a cohesive society, we need to weigh things up and I think what has happened here is a travesty,” the Fianna Fáil leader said.

“What has happened here is wrong in terms of its impact on people. I have seen the stress and trauma.”

He said that it did not appear to him that the consequences of the legal action were properly weighed up. He said that there clearly was a need to review planning laws and “the capacity that the State should have” to intervene “to protect human life".

When asked whether Environment Minister Eamon Ryan should also visit the area, the Tánaiste said OPW Minister Kieran O’Donnell had been to visit the area.

“I don’t think Minister Ryan has a responsibility for this, let’s be clear. We shouldn’t mix up the jerseys in this respect,” he said.

Not only has the flooding destroyed homes and farms, it has also created an ecological disaster.

Fionnuala Mee and her family have a sheep farm on the banks of the lough.

“We have a sheep farm and they don’t even want to eat the grass or drink the water because of the taste,” she said.

“We live beside the lake, and it used to be really vibrant, beautiful.

“We had ducks and swans – you name it. It is silent there now. Complete silence.

“To preserve the wildlife, we have destroyed it.

“All our trees are dead. They are completely rotten being submerged for so long.”

Responding to Mr Martin’s comments, Tony Lowes of Friends of the Irish Environment told the Irish Independent: “It is unacceptable for elected officials to blame FIE for upholding the law of the land. The suggestion that the council was entitled to break the law, and the organisation which challenged it in court is somehow responsible for the predicament of the local community of Lough Funshinagh is deeply unfair.

“The Tánaiste is right – the Funshinagh debacle is a ‘travesty’ – a ‘gross distortion or mockery of what is considered right or good’. In taking our legal action, FIE was seeking to ensure that a public authority was challenged and held to account. It is quite conceivable that a solution could have been approved by now had the council remained on the legally compliant pathway that they had been on before May 2021.

“What concerns us is in our 2023 Annual Report: ‘Is this the way we will face into the coming deluge? He who shouts loudest?’”