I move:—
That, having regard to the widespread damage caused to holdings adjoining the rivers Feale and Gale in North Kerry, due to breaches in the embankments of those rivers, caused by recent floods, which have rendered large tracts of land practically useless, Dáil Éireann is of opinion that the Government should regard this matter as one of urgent public importance and take appropriate action without delay.
It is now about 20 months since this motion first appeared on the Private Deputy's Business sheet. It deals with a problem that affects my constituency very much, the problem of flooding as a result of breaches in river embankments, especially in the case of the two rivers mentioned. I put down the motion for the purpose of ascertaining from the Government what their policy is, if any, towards this very serious problems. I should point out to the House that over a number of years a considerable amount of damage has been caused by floods in that part of the country, because of these breaches in the river embankments. Much damage has been occasioned to people's property and unfortunately in places along these rivers the breaches are so great as to make it impossible for the riparian owners to repair them. They cannot be repaired, in my opinion, without some State assistance.
Of course I know very well that what is true of these rivers is true also of other rivers in the country. Therefore it is a national problem that will have to be tackled by the Government. The sooner it is tackled, the less the expenditure will be in carrying out the necessary repairs. I have known myself of cases in other parts of the country where breaches occurred in river embankments and if these breaches had been attended to in time, a couple of hundred pounds would have been sufficient to carry out the necessary repairs but because they were not tackled in time, it transpired afterwards that it cost as many thousand pounds to carry out the required repairs.
There are several breaches along the rivers Feale and Gale in North Kerry. One is a tributary of the other. I am trying to ascertain from the Minister or the Parliamentary Secretary if they have studied this problem in all its aspects. I know very well that sometimes when applications is made to the Land Commission for financial help to carry out such repairs the answer almost invariably is that they have no responsibility whatsoever in the matter. They also point to the fact that there is a trust fund from which financial assistance can be got for the carrying out of this work.
As regards the non-responsibility of the Land Commission, in my opinion that is a false position for the Land Commission to take up, because it should be the concern of the Land Commission to preserve the land in relation to which they expect to collect land annuities year after year. I submit that if a person's land is sometimes covered with water for a good portion of the year and consequently rendered partially useless, it is wrong to expect the sufferers to keep on paying their annuities to the Land Commission if the Land Commission does not come to their rescue in some way. Therefore, I hold that it should be the responsibility of the Land Commission to repair these embankments and, if they were once repaired, I think it would be quite an easy matter for the land owners to maintain them afterwards.
As to the trust fund that they refer to when application is made to them for financial assistance, it does not amount to much. The annual interest from it usually does not exceed a couple of hundred pounds. Therefore it is useless and futile to refer to this trust fund in connection with the repair of river embankments.
As to the extent of the damage which takes place as a result of the flooding of these rivers, I can recall more than one occasion when people living along these rivers had to leave their homes because of the intense flooding. The last time that flooding occurred along the River Feale the case was so serious that people had to be taken from their homes and provided with accommodation in the district hospital. I am trying to point out to the House the seriousness of this whole problem. I do not know how many other rural Deputies have a similar problem in their constituency. If they have, I am sure they will have something to say on this motion. At any rate, I have opened the debate in connection with these two rivers in North Kerry and I hope that as a result the whole problem of repairing river embankments will be tackled by the responsible Minister. Recently we had another motion of this nature, but the terms of that motion were confined to sea embankments. No doubt that problem is also a very important one, especially in parts of County Kerry. But if that problem is important, this problem of repairing the river embankments is just as important.
I should like to know from the Parliamentary Secretary what will be the attitude of the present Government in relation to this problem. I must admit that certain repairs have been carried out by the Land Commission over a number of years, but they did the work rather grudgingly because they said they did not accept responsibility for it. The amount of work they have carried out on these river embankments, however, has not been at all sufficient. Therefore I ask the House to give reconsideration to this matter, not alone from the point of view of its local aspect but also from the general national point of view. The land of the country, as I said, is very precious. In this particular case it happens that the land is good, while in many other parts of Kerry the land is bad. Here, where you have the good land adjoining these rivers, it is a pity to see people's property destroyed by flooding from these rivers as a result of the breaches which have occurred in the embankments. I therefore commend the motion to the House.