Vol. 522 No. 4
110 Mr. Ring asked the Minister for Finance the current position with regard to the flooding problem at Ballinacarra, Kilmaine, County Mayo; if an environmental impact study will be carried out; if he will provide a copy of the report prepared on this issue; the proposals to resolve the flooding; and when the work will be done. [18867/00]
As a preliminary measure, the Office of Public Works has had the environmental impact of the measures contained in the draft preliminary report of its consulting engineers into the flooding problems in the Ballinacarra, Kilmaine, area of County Mayo, examined by an ecologist with expertise in the area of turlough vegetation. This environmental report, now to, hand, adverts to the impacts which the flood relief proposals for lowering flooding in the Thomastown Turlough could have on the ecology of the important adjoining turloughs of Skealoghan and Coolisduff and points out that any environmentally acceptable scheme would be unlikely to have the desired effects of reducing the extent of the flooding in the Thomastown Turlough sufficiently to relieve the flooding problem in the Ballinacarra area.
In the circumstances, therefore, as neither this scheme as proposed nor an earlier drainage scheme proposal, which involved excavating a new channel into Coolisduff Turlough, would be environmentally acceptable, the Office of Public Works does not propose to progress them any further. This decision, together with a copy of the ecologist's report, have recently been forwarded to Mayo County Council with the suggestion that it may wish to proceed itself with the remaining flood relief recommendation involving the raising of the road at Ballinacarra.
I am arranging for a copy of the ecologist's report to be forwarded to the Deputy.
