NI flooding assistance bill £3m

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Nearly £3m has been spent in emergency payments for summer flooding.

Figures detailing the spend from two spells of wet weather in 2007 and 2008 were given in an assembly answer to the SDLP's Thomas Burns.

In 2007, £1,181 payments of £1,000 in emergency assistance was paid and in 2008, £1,643,000 was handed out.

The cost of administering the schemes over the two years was £384,791. Local councils administer the scheme, to help people hit by flooding.

In 2007, there were nearly 1,000 claims from Belfast and Castlereagh.

The two districts accounted for just a third of the 1,643 claims the following year, with a massive increase in claims from across County Antrim and County Down.

Belfast's multi-million pound Broadway underpass was under 20 feet of water during flooding in August.

The level of rainfall which fell on Belfast on that occasion had not been experienced since 1914.