I thank the Chair for permitting me to raise this matter. On 10 February last, I asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government about the possibility of departmental approval for a scheme submitted by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to improve drainage in the Carysfort-Maretimo area of Blackrock. I was disappointed with the reply I received which estimated the cost of the scheme at £1.75 million. The Minister stated he could not say when it would be possible to advance the scheme.
The need for this scheme arises mainly from the development of the Carysfort lands which were the subject of considerable controversy for other reasons in this House in the past, and other lands in the general Blackrock-Stillorgan area. In 1991, before the Carysfort development commenced, the Borough engineer of Dún Laoghaire Corporation at the time, Mr. Larry Brassill, prepared a report in which he stated:
It is anticipated that development of the Carysfort Lands will commence in the relatively near future, resulting in a substantial addition to flows to the present surface water system within these lands, and downstream of them. An investigation has been carried out on the capacity of this entire surface water system, as far as the sea at Maretimo. It is known that there are substantial inadequacies in the present surface water system throughout the greater water area, as confirmed, by occasional and severe flooding in the past. In the absence of alleviating measures, this situation would further worsen substantially in the future from the appreciable additional run-off from the proposed development of the Carysfort Lands. It is essential, therefore, that the entire surface water system be augmented and improved to cater for all normal future surface water contributions.
The borough engineer stated that the developments in the upper reaches of the catchment above Sandyford would also add to the problem. He went on:
The entire open stream channel [which] flows downstream as far as the Blackrock Bypass will have to be augmented by a new major parallel surface water culvert, varying in size between 1200 mm and 1650mm. The existing hydraulic channel controls downstream of the pond in Carysfort Lands have been identified as an area of major inadequacy and these will require replacement and/or improvement.
At the end of his report he proposes the scheme to be submitted for approval for funding from the Department of the Environment. He states: "The scheme has a considerable urgency, as it is vital that the enhanced surface water capacity be available before the development of the Carysfort Lands should proceed to any substantial extent." That was in 1991. The scheme was submitted to the Department of the Environment. The Carysfort lands have since been developed. The St. Augustine's lands have been developed. There has been considerable development in the Stillorgan and Sandyford areas. The result of all that is that the predictions made by the borough engineer in 1991 have now come true because last Christmas there was considerable flooding of households and businesses in this area. I have here a sheaf of letters that I received from constituents who are angry at the fact that, although their local council submitted a scheme to the Department of the Environment all of seven years ago, in advance of the major developments in the area, the Department of the Environment and Local Government has still not approved the scheme. One of the letters from the managing director of Dublin Crystal, a well known business in the area stated that many homes and businesses are now threatened by flash flooding. He says that they have already had to replace timber floors in part of their factory as a result of water penetration from flooding and that the same area was again damaged in December. This is a problem of flooding which was anticipated back in 1991. The local council submitted a scheme for drainage to the Department of the Environment, and we are still waiting for approval of this very urgent, very important scheme which, if not funded, will result in considerable flooding of businesses and of dwellings in the Blackrock area of my constituency.
