The Ulster Unionist Party’s MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone Tom Elliott has said that the limited outcomes of a meeting of three Executive Ministers on the current flooding crisis proved it was a ‘stunt held for the optics of giving an impression of action being taken’.

Tom Elliott MP said:

“For the people who have water running through their homes, or those who have been isolated for weeks, or for the farmers who are battling night and day to keep their sheds and machinery from being submerged, the outcome of the meeting will do nothing but compel the feeling that the Northern Ireland Executive has all but abandoned them.

“Instead of three Ministers meeting informally in Cookstown it should have been a full and formal meeting of the entire Executive. That would have meant decisions could have been made there and then, and funding for immediate support measures could have been allocated.

“The Northern Ireland Executive must now concentrate on securing and drawing down additional funding for flood prevention in Northern Ireland. Indeed I have already twice asked the Government at Westminster about potential Barnett consequentials which we could avail of from their own investment in flood prevention Another area I believe the local Executive must focus upon is the fact that home and business owners affected by flooding across England are entitled to £5,000 each, whereas in Northern Ireland it is only £1,000 and is restricted to home owners.

“In addition in Parliament this week I have heard several MPs talk of how the dredging of some rivers have saved their constituencies from flooding catastrophes with one even stating that fairly recent dredging had proven so effective that they ‘had masses of rain yet river levels fell by 2 feet’. I believe once the Executive has responded to the immediate challenges of the current floods a programme of river dredging, including the Erne and Bann, must be rolled out to improve the flow of our local major waterways.”

ENDS