Newry Armagh Sinn Féin Sinn Féin -- Building an Ireland of Equals

Hearty calls for investment to prevent flooding of farmland

Published: 30 August, 2009

Sinn Fein's Agricultural Spokesperson Cllr Hearty has called for an investment by DARD's River Agency to be spent on ensuring that all rivers and main drains are running freely.

Cllr Hearty said,

"Farmers are suffering severely with farm land and especially crops waterlogged. There are blockages, especially around bridges where silt has built up on the sides and underneath the bridges which holds back water and flooding farmland and crops.

"There also seems to be blockages in a lot of the main drains that run into the rivers. The last three summers has caused serious damage to farm land.

"The River Agency needs to ensure that this work is carried out sooner rather than later in order to ensure that this water is kept away from farm land. This may go some way to lessen the hardship on farmers where farmland is flooded.

"Flooding has also caused some serious damage to roads. We have a number of landslides which I'm told by Road Service will take a lot of money to repair so in the long run the investment by the River Agency will be money well spent.