Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle, for allowing me to raise this matter tonight. No Government Department is willing to accept financial or statutory responsibility for the flooding of houses in Duleek and certain public buildings in Julianstown, both of which are on the banks of the Nanny River. The Nanny catchment is due to be drained under the Arterial Drainage Act but this is not likely to occur until we are half way throught the next century, if ever.
The Office of Public Works will not accept any immediate responsibility for this matter. The Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Dempsey, said in the Dáil on 23 November that the 1945 Arterial Drainage Act does not allow the Minister to undertake works to relieve flooding of specific houses. It seems in effect that that Act can only be used to drain an entire catchment principally for the agricultural benefits that might accrue and the Office of Public Works does not concern itself with the flooding of houses.
On that occasion the Minister of State drew attention to the fact that the Local Authority (Works) Act, 1949 does allow the local authorities to carry out such works but the fact is they have no money to do this. Since the abolition of domestic rates they have no source from which to raise funds to carry out this work themselves. I asked the Minister for the Environment about the matter and he said the grants from the Environment Vote to the local authorities address flood relief requirements only in the context of measures to relieve the surcharge on existing drainage works in built up areas. They do not deal with the more general problem of flooding because of a river overflowing. In this case there is overflow of both the Nanny and Paramadden Rivers, which converge at the estate about which I am concerned in particular in Duleek, the Mill Race housing estate.
The Mill Race housing estate in Duleek has been flooded three or four times since it was built. Twenty-two of the 122 houses are flooded each time there is flooding. One of these is occupied by an elderly person and another by a lone parent with two children. Each time this estate is flooded the entrance is also flooded with the result that all 122 houses are cut-off, even though only 22 are flooded. The insurance companies have refused to continue to quote for flood insurance to the affected houses in Mill Race housing estate.
Meath County Council, representatives of which visited the estate last week, has indicated that it is refusing to take over responsibility for this estate. It remains the responsibility of the developer who has left it. The county council which I have contacted about the matter says that it is not willing and does not believe that it would be worth while to conduct any further works in the area, such as the building of banks, because it feels they will not work. A hydrographic study of the entire Nanny and Paramadden catchments needs to be carried out to ensure those works would be effective and the county council does not have the money to finance a study of this magnitude and, indeed, does not have the expertise. The Office of Public Works does but it has refused to do anything about it for the reasons I have indicated. It does not accept responsibility. I have raised the matter in the House in the hope that some Minister will accept responsibility for the matter and that something will be done.