'Real devastation' in Midleton

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar also said there appears to be very serious floods in east Cork with "real devastation" in Midleton and a number of other towns being affected, including parts of Waterford also.

He said the immediate response is the Defence Forces helping people and preventing the flood from spreading.

He added that they are also offering humanitarian schemes and helping families and businesses with some of the cost of the clean-up.

He said in the vast majority of cases people have their own insurance so "this is just to kind of tide them over" and added they are also helping those who could not get insurance.

"There will need to be more. It is very evident there is a lot of damage to the roads and a lot of damage to things like walls."

He said they will need to assess the damage and put a costing on the repair of it and make a special allocation so the repairs are done.

He said there are different flood schemes in some places which work very well and in others not as well as they get stuck in planning over environmental issues.

"Some are built, some are being built and some are stuck in the planning process."

He said there is often a lot of opposition to flood schemes as they have an impact on the habitat and wildlife.