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Ireland is tonight bracing itself for more heavy rains as flood relief workers called off a planned strike to deal with the devastation wreaked on parts of the country.
Environment Minister John Gormley said it would not be possible to gauge the full scale of the damage in Cork, Galway and Clare until the middle of the week.
“Things are very bad,” he said.
“I think it’s fair to say what we are experiencing at the moment is unprecedented.”
Mr Gormley and Taoiseach Brian Cowen thanked council workers who agreed not to take part in Tuesday’s national public sector strike because of the crisis.
As many as 2,000 staff involved in the frontline of the emergency response, including support workers at the Mercy Hospital and St Finbarr’s Hospital in Cork, will continue working.
Gene Mealy, of trade union Siptu, said: “We will be monitoring the situation and our members will always respond wherever there are lives at risk or urgent humanitarian issues to be addressed.”
Speaking after a meeting of the government’s Emergency Response Co-Ordination Committee, Mr Cowen warned that high tides and further heavy rainfall were being forecast for tomorrow and Tuesday.
Half of all homes in Cork city are expected to remain without tap water for at least a week after massive damage was caused to the city’s main pumping station.
Schools without a water supply have been told to shut down.
Tankers are distributing water at emergency supply points for areas worst affected across the city.
Hundreds of people evacuated from their homes in Ballinasloe, Co Galway and Ennis, Co Clare, have not been allowed to return to their homes.
The Defence Forces have been deployed to some of the worst hit areas to help local emergency services, and remain on high alert should conditions deteriorate.
Fears of water pollution has seen boil notices in parts of Cork and in Galway.
Mr Gormley, who spent the last two days travelling around the worst affected areas, said the rain damage is being described as a once in 800 years event.
But warning scientific studies showed heavy flooding will become more frequent here, he said up to €50m extra will be spent every year on new protection measures.
The full cost of the damage over the past few days – now expected to run into hundreds of thousands of euro – would not be known until Wednesday, he said.
Ireland South MEP Alan Kelly urged the Government to apply for EU funding for those whose businesses and homes were destroyed.
The EU Solidarity Fund, set up after flooding in Germany and Austria in 2002, was available for such catastrophes, he said. Several main roads and streets in Galway, Cork, Limerick and Clonmel, Co Tipperary, remained impassable at sections during the day.
Iarnrod Eireann said services were disrupted on the Galway, Sligo, Rosslare and Limerick to Ennis lines.
Eircom said it has restored service to more than 20,000 customers over the weekend but 4,700 more remain without a connection because of flood and storm damage.
