Financial flood support for businesses 'nowhere near enough', says Sinn Féin MP

Financial support offered to flooded businesses needs to be increased by "at least four or five times more than is currently on the table," according to a Sinn Féin MP.

Chris Hazzard said funding of around £50m - £60m may be closer to the overall support needed after meeting with the Head of the Civil Service Jayne Brady.

To date, £15m of emergency relief support has been announced by the secretary of state that would be reallocated from existing Stormont funds.

Contained within that sum is a rate-relief scheme and a one-off grant of £7,500.

Heavy rainfall in counties Down and Armagh left hundreds of businesses flooded, with some in the worst areas of Newry, Downpatrick and Portadown left under several feet of water.

On Tuesday afternoon, South Down MP Chris Hazzard called on the secretary of state to make the case for further support from the Treasury.

He said the current financial package "is nowhere near enough and will not meet the scale of this emergency".

"While support for business is very good, we need much more," he added.

"We also need to extend this scheme to homeowners and those residential properties that have been affected by the flooding.

"The secretary of state must make that message loud and clear, people will be left if they do not step up and provide that funding."

He added: "The indicative reporting that was done by local councils gives some shape and suggested that this was going to be tens of millions of pounds, but at the very outset when businesses first started to open their shutters, in Newry and Downpatrick alone, they were thinking anywhere between £50m- £60m, and that was two weeks ago.

"That could be anywhere heading up in the tens of millions of pounds to £100m, we simply don't know.

"But, put it this way, it's at least four of five times more than what is currently on the table."

The Northern Ireland Office has been contacted for comment.

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