THE people of Boho “deserve better” says resident Dessie McKenzie after it emerged that many people in the area affected by severe flooding last year were not eligible for financial assistance.
Last March the Northern Ireland Executive agreed that an Emergency Financial Assistance Scheme be established for non domestic properties, including small businesses, recreational and community buildings, places of worship and farm businesses to cover the period November 7, 2015 until January 31, 2016. The £1,000 payment was designed to be a contribution towards practical assistance, and not a compensation payment. 
But Boho, one of the areas affected by flooding, was not included in the qualifying criteria for the scheme.
“It’s insulting to think nobody in our locality qualified for this scheme,” Mr. McKenzie told The Impartial Reporter.
“The school was badly affected, three roads into were effectively closed to any normal vehicles cutting off emergency support and home help to the many elderly people living in the area.
“I won’t and will not accept that it should be that in 2017 if heavy rainfall comes that residents of Boho should be cut off from their farms, from their work and from their school because of a gradual withdrawal of services,” he said. 
To be eligible for the £1,000 payment certain criteria had to be met, including that small business must have employed less than 25 people at the time of the flooding incident and the ability to demonstrate a remedial cost of at least £1,000. Farm business were required to have farmland within specified areas in townlands around Upper Lough Erne and specified townlands had to have been under water for at least 14 days.
The issue was raised at last week’s meeting of Fermanagh and Omagh District Council in which Independent Councillor Bernice Swift spoke of how Boho residents feel “insulted” by the “high degree of negligence” from Stormont.
Chief Executive Brendan Hegarty explained that the Boho area “was excluded and remains excluded” in the qualifying criteria. 
“I can conclude from that that they have consistently discriminated against the rural west constituents,” said Councillor Swift. 
“I am making the case here again strongly that the six year review and maintenance every six years is dropped and at least the special case for the people of Boho would go some way in alleviating the problems if they are not going to reroute the river,” she said, as some Boho residents sat in the chamber listening to the discussion.
“I want to agree with Bernice and second that,” said Sinn Fein Councillor John Feely. “The not getting compensation because they weren’t on the River Erne, they were on the Sillees River, is not good enough. It should be for the Sillies as well,” he said. 
Sinn Fein’s Thomas O’Reilly asked the Council to provide him with details of all those who were turned down for the financial assistance. 
“There does seem to be an inequality between how some people were compensated and how others because of a line in a map fell out of that,” he said.
Fermanagh and Omagh District Council paid out £164,000 to successful farming applicants. 79 farming applications were rejected, the majority on the basis that the area of flooding was calculated to be less than 10 per cent or more of the total land actively farmed by the applicant. By the closing date of July 22, 2016, 48 appeals were received and forwarded to the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs for consideration. “I would be very reluctant for having the Council involved in a such a similar scheme again,” said Mr. Hegarty.