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Newry & Armagh MLA Justin McNulty is calling for “focus and energy” from Stormont Ministers after attending the presentation of a draft report on last year’s devastating flooding events in Newry and South Armagh.
Speaking at an information session in Newry Leisure Centre, the Newry & Armagh MLA commented: “we have a high level report here, and essentially, all it tells us is there was a flood.”
Mr. McNulty joined business and civic leaders in Newry in pressing for safeguarding measures to prevent a reoccurrence of last year’s floods that devastated Newry City Centre businesses and left households reeling.
Mr McNulty said: “I was there on the day of those floods – I joined many others in hauling sand bags to protect businesses and praying that the river didn’t breach its defences. I never want to see people, families and businesses left so vulnerable ever again.
“I am not interested in joining a blame game – that doesn’t serve anyone. But we absolutely must learn from what went wrong, and take steps to minimise the chances of it happening again. At this point, my fear is that things are moving far too slowly. It was been 8 months since the floods last year, and if I am being brutally honest, what we saw presented at the meeting just does not cut the mustard in terms of concrete action. "
The MLA insists this is time critical. He added “Time is of the essence, and flood alleviation in Newry must now be a critical priority for our Executive. I have written to the Infrastructure Minister seeking urgent updates on progress, and I will be raising this issue with the First Ministers directly.
“We need the review stage to reach its conclusion imminently, and we need to see decisive action to protect Newry from flooding in the future.”
