THE clean-up operation following Storm Ciarán has cost the Infrastructure and Environment Department around £500,000, the Chief Minister has revealed.
And Deputy Kristina Moore said the government had identified a further £500,000 of estimated damage to public buildings.
Addressing the Corporate Affairs Scrutiny Panel yesterday, Deputy Moore said that the government did not know how much damage had been caused to privately owned buildings although it was aware of the damage to facilities owned by sports clubs.
“Those organisations and private individuals will be making their own arrangements through their own insurance companies, so it is very difficult to quantify but we can see that there’s an incredible amount of work to be done,” she said.
Deputy Moore paid tribute to the government’s strategic co-ordination group “who stepped up as the week advanced”.
“They took time to consider everything they needed to do to prepare, which included ensuring that there was an agreement in place with hotels so that people could, if necessary, be transferred,” she said.
The government is now working on a “categorisation framework” to help in future times of crisis when, the Chief Minister pointed out, Islanders might not have the same opportunity to prepare.
