‘Forget red tape - save our homes before it’s too late’

FEARFUL RESIDENTS IN LIMBO WITH NO AUTHORITY TAKING RESONSIBILITY

RESIDENTS of the riverside homes in Listowel left teetering above the Feale, after last week’s dramatic landslide, are calling on the OPW to take charge of the situation as they fear further collapse with the continuing heavy rains.

They have yet to secure an admission of responsibility from any agency with a stake in the county’s waterways, however.

The OPW confirmed to The Kerryman this week the location does form part of a drainage scheme ‘under its auspices’ - but that applies only to the river, not the bank which is considered private property.

Meanwhile, Kerry County Council says it has ‘no function or responsibility’ in the matter.

“I’m praying for the rain to stop as I fear it will just keep slipping,” resident Ena Bunyan (91) told The Kerryman. Ms Bunyan lost her rear-most line of trees in the mudslide last week. “The grandchildren are barred from the garden now. The hedge will go next because it is barely hanging on.

“I’m here over 60 years and it’s going on since 2013. Michael Healy Rae raised our fears over the river undercutting the property in the Dáil, but was told it wasn’t severe and would be dealt with in time. Well, the time has come and gone now. The OPW has to take charge of it.”

RIVERSIDE residents left teetering high above the Feale in Listowel after last week’s landslide are facing a lengthy period of uncertainty over the future of their homes in the absence of any single authority taking responsibility for the riverbank.

Part of several gardens at the rear of Market Street are potentially on the brink of collapse after the constant onslaught of recent heavy rains blown in by one storm after another saturated the bank to the point of collapse at the height of Storm Dennis last Sunday week.

But with no single river authority in the State, residents have yet to even find out who is responsible for protecting their properties.

Kerry County Council emphatically told The Kerryman on Tuesday that it ‘ has no function or responsibility in the matter’.

The Office of Public Works – which visited the site after the collapse – confirmed to The Kerryman on Tuesday that the River Feale at the location in question is part of a scheme under its auspices.

But this applies solely to the river and not to the bank, which is being treated as private property.

“The River Feale, at this location, forms part of an Arterial Drainage Scheme which is under the auspices of OPW, and the purpose of that scheme is to provide drainage outfall for agricultural land. The OPW visited the location last week,” a spokesperson for the OPW said.

“The River Feale is still in flood. Once the river levels have receded and the river conditions at the location are safe, the OPW will carry out an inspection,” they added.

The Kerryman understands the agency’s investigation will focus on the integrity and provenance of an old concrete wall once used as a platform by anglers.

If it can be established that the wall was put in place by the OPW when it first embarked on works along the Feale in the 1950s, and that it has since collapsed – as is believed locally – it could force the OPW’s hand on the matter of responsibility.

But the wall may well pre-date the OPW works or even still exist under earth that slipped over it in the years since.

Whichever the case, residents and local politicians are appealing for the State to intervene as a matter of urgency and move fast to protect the homes. An emergency motion is being called at next week’s meeting of the Listowel Municipal Council.

Cathaoirleach Jimmy Moloney said efforts are being made to bring representatives of the OPW and other agencies and departments involved before that meeting, with a view to determining a speedy solution to the subsidence. “Someone has to put up their hand and accept responsibility now when people’s homes and properties are at risk like this,” he said.

Complicating the situation is the fact the river is a protected SAC salmonid fishery – with any costly works subject to an exhaustive assessment and planning process that could take years.

Photo by John Kelliher A drone’s eye view of the dramatic landslide at the rear of Ena Bunyan’s Market Street home in Listowel, high above the River Feale.

Photograph by John Kelliher A drone’s eye view of the landslide at the rear of Ena Bunyan’s home on Market St, showing the subsidence right up to the hedging at the rearmost limit of her property.