Ferries Cancelled Following Gale Warnings

The Irish weather monitoring office has issued a gale warning ahead of bad weather conditions off the coast on Wednesday.

All Irish ferries sailing on the Dublin to Holyhead route have been cancelled due to the expected bad conditions, with winds expected to reach up to gale force eight in places.

Stena Line Fastferry sailings between Rosslare and Fishguard have also been cancelled.

Force six winds from the Northwest will affect all coasts by this evening and road conditions will also be affected.

The news comes following an announcement on Tuesday, that despite the continually bad conditions, along with the wettest summer since records began, a senior forecaster claims climate change is not responsible.

Ray McGrath, Met Eireann's head of research, said that while July and August of the last two years were swamped with torrential downpours it was nothing too out of the ordinary.

Speaking at a three-day conference on climate change at Trinity College Dublin, Mr McGrath said: "This attitude that is prevalent today to blame everything on climate change, if you have a bad summer, it must be due to climate change, or if you get flooding it must be do to with climate change.

"If you look at it in the context of the weather we've had over the last 50 years there have been other episodes when we've had some very heavy flooding."

Figures from the meteorological service revealed parts of the country experienced rainfall levels 200% above normal, with Dublin recording the heaviest levels in 171 years.

(DW/JM)