Workers Party councillor Ted Tynan last night asked City Manager as to whether the quay wall beside the Mercy Hospital may have been damaged by a mechanical digger weeks before the wall collapsed in the recent severe weather.
Speaking at a meeting of Cork City Council which was dominated by the recent flooding crisis, Cllr. Tynan says that he had seen photographs showing a large mechanised excavator (traxcavator) working at the same spot where the wall was to collapse early on the 20th November at the height of the heavy rain and high tides. He has been informed that large amounts of stone, possibly old cobblestones, was removed from the River Lee at Grenville Place around a month before the wall collapsed. His source and a number of others he spoke to say that the excavator’s bucket hit off the quay wall on several occasions.
Cllr. Tynan has tabled a series of questions to the City Manager, Mr. Joe Gavin, in an attempt to find out if the machine in question could possibly have damaged the quay wall and to ascertain why it was removing this material in the first place.
“The recent floods have had a devastating effect on parts of the city centre around the Marsh area. It is estimated that damage at the Mercy Hospital alone was in the order of €2 million and the hospital was almost put out of action. We need to find out why this happened and if there is any connection between the removal of the stone and the wall’s collapse. I haved asked the City Manager tonight to investigate the reports and give his opinion on the matter”, said Cllr. Tynan.
Photos shown were taken with a cameraphone on 19th October - one month before the wall collapsed, and show the traxcavator machine working at Grenville Place.
