BAD news if you live in Boho; Regional Development Minister Michelle McIlveen has said there is “very little” her Department can do if flooding affects roads in the area again.


The Sansonagh Road was one of a number of roads in and around the Boho area that was forced to close during several weeks of severe flooding.


Minister McIlveen told Sinn Fein’s Phil Flanagan, weeks after he first asked for a response, that the Boho area “regularly suffers” in times of heavy rainfall.


“While the latest flooding in the area is the most severe in recent times, work carried out in 2010 following the Fermanagh Flooding Taskforce Report has reduced the severity of the isolation. Roads that would previously have been impassable by any vehicle were passable using larger vehicles.”


She said that in such circumstances “there is very little my Department can do other than monitor the situation and keep the public advised with updated information as the situation improves.”


In a later discussion, DUP MLA Maurice Morrow asked Agriculture Minister Michelle O’Neill about the issue of flooding again, describing it as a “vexed situation” and asking her to “start doing” something about it.


“I have very much been in doing mode over the last six or eight weeks,” replied Minister O’Neill.


“We have been on the ground and making sure that our agencies are on the ground, delivering for people and businesses and trying to mitigate the worst effects, making sure that grilles were cleared and that the multi-agency approach was correct.

"That has certainly been borne out well in terms of the impact on communities, particularly those in Fermanagh, areas of south Tyrone and around the shores of Lough Neagh that have been devastated and cut off,” she said.