New yellow rain warnings issued for 13 counties

A yellow rain warning has been issued for seven counties on Friday, with a warning also issued for all of the North.

Met Éireann has issued a warning to Carlow, Dublin, Kilkenny, Louth, Waterford, Wexford and Wicklow.

It comes into effect from 9 am on Friday until midnight on Saturday.

Met Éireann has warned of flooding and dangerous travelling conditions.

The Met Office has issued a yellow rain warning for the North from midnight on Friday until 6 pm.

The warnings come as the cleanup continues from Storm Chandra.

Up to 20,000 properties were without power at the peak of Storm Chandra.

The scale of the flooding in some areas has heaped pressure on forecaster Met Eireann and the Government over whether the warnings were sufficient.

Heavy rain falling on already saturated ground and high river levels could cause further flooding on Thursday.

Met Éireann issued a yellow rain warning for the whole day in counties Carlow, Kilkenny, Waterford, Wexford, Wicklow and Dublin.

Clean-up operations continued amid the threat of more rain in some of the worst-affected towns, like Enniscorthy and Aughrim, and areas in South Dublin.

These areas were on the itinerary for Minister of State for the Office of Public Works Kevin “Boxer” Moran on Thursday, as he assessed some of the flood damage after Storm Chandra.

His visits come amid anger at delays to flood relief schemes around the country.

Unite has called for four days paid leave if extreme weather makes it impossible to travel to work and four days paid leave to be available if workers need to address needs at their home.

The union’s demands also include a legal obligation on employers to implement graduated alert-based responses, with non-essential outdoor work ceasing during amber/orange alerts and all non-essential work ceasing during red alerts.