asked the Minister for Local Government if he has yet received any report regarding the recent flooding of the river Dodder; and if he is in a position to state what steps will be taken to prevent damage to property occurring from flooding of this river in future.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Dodder Flooding.
42.
I have received from the Dublin Corporation a copy of an interim report in which the City Engineer indicated that full examination of the causes of the periodic flooding by the Dodder and other rivers in the Dublin area would require detailed and extended investigations and that a final report would not be available for some time. The powers of local authorities to undertake works for the purpose of affording relief or protection from flooding are permissive and not mandatory. When the City Engineer's final report is available it will be for the Dublin Corporation to decide whether they will take any steps that may be open to them in the matter. Such decision would not require my sanction unless it involved the financing of works from a loan or a State grant.
To my personal knowledge the Dodder has been flooding for the past 50 years. Surely if the engineers of Dublin Corporation are interested in this problem, they ought to have had time to discover in the last half century what was making the Dodder flood? As Deputy Briscoe says—and he is an intelligent member of the Corporation—water! But the engineers do not even seem to have reached that conclusion yet, and the Minister for Local Government seems to have accepted as normal that they have not even arrived at the degree of illumination of which Deputy Briscoe boasts.
The Minister tells us the chief engineer is now investigating why the Dodder is flooding. Deputy Briscoe says he knows—water! I am asking the Minister does he think that is an adequate explanation of the flooding of the Dodder—water? Or does he not think that the chief engineer of Dublin Corporation should have had time in the past 50 years to discover why the water is flooding the people living along the Dodder?
May I be protected from this flood of words? I did not open my mouth.
I was responsible for the suggestion.
As between the Tánaiste and Deputy Briscoe, there is a close liaison.