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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 3 Feb 2010

Vol. 701 No. 1

Flood Relief Works.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise this issue. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, to the House. I am raising the issue in response to the Minister of State's launch of the draft catchment flood risk assessment management study for the River Lee in Cork.

This is the third time I have raised this issue on the Adjournment since September. Cork city is vulnerable to floods, as are many areas in County Cork that have been established and recognised in the report. I commend the report, it is extensive and surveys the River Lee, its catchments and tributaries. It covers an area of 2,000 sq. km. including the harbour and all rivers that drain into it, identifying areas that are prone to flooding.

Looking back, there has been flooding almost every two years. The river flooded in 1986, in November 2000 and in November 2002. There was tidal flooding in October 2004, the river flooded again in December 2006 and again in November 2009, an event that caused extreme concern. The damage has been well highlighted, with the effect it had on major structures in Cork, with homes, the university, a hotel, the headquarters of Cork County Council extensively damaged.

This draft report recommends the implementation of protection schemes to ensure homes and businesses are protected. There should be flood forecasting systems combined with targeted flood awareness and education and optimisation of the Carrigadrohid and Inniscarra dams. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government is seeking a review of the operation of the dams to see the impact their operation had on the flood of 19 November.

The construction of new flood defences and channel modification have been identified as measures to reduce the flood risk to critical infrastructure such as the Lee Road waterworks, the Jack Lynch tunnel and national routes. There must also be improvement of the network of rainfall and river gauges to enable effective flood forecasting. These mitigating measures will reduce the impact of floods.

The headline following the publication of the report was there is no funding available and funding in excess of €100 million would be needed to implement its recommendations. I look forward to the Minister of State's response in the hope that he will be able to set the record straight and identify which measures can be implemented following the report to ensure that flood mitigation measures are introduced.

This is a draft publication and is undergoing public consultation. If the Minister of State is about to say that no funding will be available, what is the point in responding to the report at all? During the past week, it has often been stated that in excess of €100 million will be required. The known damage to UCC alone last November cost €30 million. Add to that the cost of the damage to the county hall, the Kingsley Hotel, which is still closed, and houses and properties in the area. The total bill has not been yet been totted up, but we are being told that the Government cannot find €100 million over a period to ensure that such damage is not inflicted again.

I read the editorial in today's Irish Examiner. The Luas cost €3 billion. I am not criticising the Luas, as it was money well spent and has provided many advantages, but we are looking for €100 million to ensure that damage of the order experienced in Cork last November is not seen again. These are the types of measure we are trying to introduce. I hope the Minister of State will give us some hope and say that something will be done. What needs to be done has been identified. Indeed, Cork city, Carrigaline, Midleton, Macroom and Ballyvourney have been identified as high-risk areas. The Minister of State is well aware of this fact, so I look forward to his response.

I am grateful to Deputy Clune for raising this matter and for her assistance in raising the profile of the draft Lee catchment flood risk assessment and management, CFRAM, study, which I launched as a public consultation document in City Hall two days ago, which is a point worth emphasising. The plan remains in draft form at this time. For instance, the plan for the Lee catchment was substantially produced prior to the flooding of November 2009. The extent and severe impact of that flooding are currently being assessed in detail for incorporation into the final version of the plan, along with the substance of submissions received in the context of the public consultation. Nevertheless, the preliminary assessment of the flooding context of the Lee catchment indicates that the contents and proposals within this plan remain valid.

The purpose of issuing the plan now for public consultation is to foreshorten the timeline to the progression and implementation of the works proposed to reduce the risks of flooding set out in the plan. There will continue to be a full opportunity for the public and all stakeholders to review and make submissions on all aspects of the plan before it is finalised. The date in this respect is the end of April.

Nonetheless, it is important to re-emphasise the appropriateness of following the CFRAM approach in the context of the Lee and all other catchments. Since 2004, the Government has adopted a new policy that has shifted the emphasis towards a catchment-based context for managing flood risk, with more proactive risk assessment and management and increased use of non-structural and flood impact mitigation measures. CFRAM studies and their product, catchment flood risk management plans, CFRMPs, are at the core of the new national policy for flood risk management and the strategy for its implementation. This policy is in line with international best practice and meets the requirements of the EU floods directive.

The Lee CFRAMS is the primary pilot project for the national CFRAM programme and among its stated objectives are to assess flood risk through the identification of flood hazard areas and the associated impacts of flooding, identify viable structural and non-structural measures and options for managing the flood risks for localised high-risk areas and within the catchment as a whole, and prepare a strategic CFRMP and associated strategic environmental assessment, SEA, that set out the measures and policies that should be pursued by local authorities. Also, the OPW is to achieve the most cost effective and sustainable management of flood risk within the Lee catchment.

The methodology adopted for the Lee CFRAMS has been thorough and to a level of detail appropriate for the development of a flood risk management plan. It has included the collection of survey data and the assembly and analysis of meteorological, hydrological and tidal data, which have been used to develop a suite of hydraulic computer models. Flood maps are one of the main outputs of the study and are the way in which the model results are communicated to each of the end users. Where flood risks are significant, the study has identified a range of potential flood risk management options to manage them, including structural options such as flood walls and embankments and non-structural options such as flood forecasting and development control.

The CFRMP does not aim to provide solutions to all of the flooding problems that exist in the catchment. That would be neither feasible nor sustainable. Rather, it identifies viable structural and non-structural options for managing the flood risks within the catchment as a whole and for localised high-risk areas. There is a wide range of options laid out in the draft plan, many of which are interrelated or dependent on particular strategies being adopted. It is not possible at this early stage to indicate which set of options will be selected for implementation, nor would it be appropriate to do so in advance of the completion of the public consultation and stakeholder review of the draft plan.

The budgeted provision for the Office of Public Works, OPW, in terms of flood relief activities, capital works, drainage maintenance and hydrometric activities in 2010 has been raised to €68.3 million. This is a significant increase from the provision of recent years. In 2004, the provision for such services was €36.4 million. Accordingly, the annual provision for like for like services has been increased by the Government by 188% over a seven-year period.

The Minister of State has just 30 seconds left, but his script is a bit longer than that.

Am I allowed to finish?

With the consent of the House.

During the six years to 2009, the OPW has invested €130 million in capital flood relief projects alone with a further €112 million being spent on drainage maintenance and hydrometric programmes.

Major flood relief schemes involve complex engineering and construction operations and invariably have lengthy lead-in times. Variations in the timelines and associated expenditures on such major engineering projects can arise for a variety of factors, including adverse weather conditions, archaeological finds, incidence of contamination or other local environmental or ecological issues. Accordingly, the scheduling of project profiling and expenditure profiling is, of necessity, an imprecise art. The OPW has already profiled expenditure in excess of €200 million on approximately 15 major capital schemes, including provision for works in the Lee catchment from now to 2014.

The draft plan sets out clearly a proposed phasing framework for the Lee catchment. At this early stage, one can anticipate that non-structural options, which are generally lower cost, are likely to be the first to be taken forward, followed by structural options over a longer timescale. All structural options will have a lead-in time for full scheme development and detailed design and a five to ten year programme or longer might be expected for some structural options.

At the launch of the draft plan this week, I highlighted some of the measures it sets out. They include works to increase the level of protection for Cork city against tidal flooding, works to protect the city and vulnerable properties upstream against river flooding — this will provide greater flexibility for the ESB to draw down levels in the Inniscarra and Carrigadrohid reservoirs in advance of a flood, reducing the need to discharge high flows necessary to ensure dam safety — flood protection schemes for Midleton, Baile Mhic Ire, Douglas and Togher, minor works funded by the OPW to reduce risk at Little Island and Crookstown, and the development and implementation of flood forecasting systems for river flooding as well as tidal flooding from the harbour. The OPW estimates that the capital cost of these measures will amount to approximately €30 million over the period 2010-15.

In addition to these schemes, the OPW is also progressing flood protection schemes at Mallow and Fermoy. In County Cork, we spent slightly under €10 million in 2009 and we will already be spending slightly over €10 million in 2010, without taking into account immediate measures arising from the CFRAM study and minor works approved. Some 20-25% of total OPW flood defence spending shows a high level of Government commitment to addressing flooding in the Cork area. The feasibility of schemes at Bandon, Skibbereen and Clonakilty will be explored, but my office and I have already committed in principle to a full flood defence scheme in Bandon.

In 2009, Cork County Council was allocated €31,500 under the OPW minor works scheme. We have recently written to the Cork city and county councils seeking their priorities for the 2010 scheme. I reiterate that work on several of these measures, including the protection of Cork city and Baile Mhic Ire, will begin this year. Some of these works will require more time for detailed design. I will work hard to ensure funding for these works is protected within the overall capital provision for my office. Naturally, successive governments will have to make their own financial dispositions. The Lee CFRAMS study will be a bible of the next Government, whatever its composition. Cost-benefit analysis and value for money will guide future governments as well as the current one.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this matter on the Adjournment tonight. I am disappointed the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government is not here. Deputy Clune has raised the issue of flooding in Cork a few times and I have raised this matter on many occasions. On the last occasion I mentioned correspondence between the Office of Public Works and the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

This country is in an awful state when two agencies cannot come together to resolve a very small scheme like this. One agency is writing to the other and the process has been held up for over 12 months. We have had tragedies in Cork and other parts of this country over the past number of months and I am afraid that the bigger jobs will be done but the smaller jobs will be left behind.

The family in question suffered again at Christmas, with the water coming to its doorstep. Three years before that the house was flooded and washed away. Are animals and birds more important than people's lives? The last time I raised the issue, the Minister of State, Deputy Martin Mansergh, gave an answer with which I was very happy. He said that the Government would have to make a decision to put families, people and property before wildlife.

The OPW has done its job and sent the report to the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Has the service given permission for the works to be done? I know the family in question, as its members have land in the area. They love the wildlife, the land and their home but they want to be able to live in it. They cannot do so at present because every time it rains and we have a flood, the family is up all night wondering if the house will be flooded again. This can be resolved with a very small amount of money.

We had a similar issue in Kilmaine many years ago when the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the OPW said flood mitigation could not be carried out. Local developers and farmers said it could be done at a very low cost and eventually, after many years, we persuaded the OPW and the county council to give the process a chance. The spot in Kilmaine had been flooded for the past 50 years and when we experienced in October, November and December the worst flooding since the foundation of the State, not a drop of water came in. The people were delighted.

The same scenario is panning out in Roundfort. The land belonging to this family and its neighbours has been flooded and the scheme proposed by the OPW involves a small amount of money. I hope the Minister of State will not have to speak for long here because he has good news. I hope he will tell me that the National Parks and Wildlife Service has agreed, with the OPW, to allow the work to be done once and for all.

I raised the matter in November and we are now into February. We are coming into the spring and this work must be done between February and September, as it will be impossible after that. The people in question wanted to come to the Dáil this evening to hear me speaking and the Minister of State's response. If we do not get a resolution, we will go to the offices of the National Parks and Wildlife Service and we will not leave until we get a satisfactory reply. It will not hold us up for another 12 months with some guy looking over these papers and making people's lives hell.

The Minister of State can tell the people in the National Parks and Wildlife Service that we are coming. The last time we went to Agriculture House we brought the sheep and let them loose in the Department. This time we will flood the agency with people who have enough of their current problems. They would not mind if there was a genuine reason for the work not happening but we do not even know what is going on. One Department is writing to the other but we want the matter resolved. I hope the Minister of State has some good news for me tonight and that the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, along with the OPW, has agreed to the works being done.

The Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government has received proposals from the OPW concerning its intention to undertake work to alleviate flooding in the Roundfort-Hollymount area in County Mayo. I fully understand the anxiety felt by people from homes and farmsteads flooding. On a slightly lighter note, I know that area of Mayo reasonably well as I remember canvassing up there in a by-election. There was a very shy and retiring man by the name of Michael Ring standing for Fine Gael who was subsequently elected, continuing to fulfil his promise and commitment to represent the people of Mayo with distinction.

I thank the Minister of State.

This area is part of the Kilglassan-Caheravoostia turlough complex special area of conservation which is protected under the EU Habitats Directive. Turloughs, or lakes which disappear for part of the year, are a unique feature of this country and are an important part of our natural heritage. They are among the most distinctive of our semi-natural landscapes and many are of international importance.

This complex in Mayo is one of the most important turloughs in the country as it is relatively large with considerable habitat diversity. Ireland is required under the directive to protect this unique complex. In the case of the OPW proposals, the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government's role is to advise on the assessment of the impacts of the proposed works as they relate to the habitats and species in the special area of conservation complex.

It is important, in order to protect the habitat and species in this special area of conservation, that the particular methods proposed by the OPW do not impair the normal hydrological regime in the turlough complex while addressing issues of public safety. The National Parks and Wildlife Service of the Department has completed its assessment and will now forward it to the OPW. I understand representatives of the National Parks and Wildlife Service intend to meet with representatives of the OPW in order to arrive at an optimum solution to the flooding problem which will not adversely impact the turloughs. I hope that will address the issues and concerns raised by Deputy Ring tonight.

I thank the Minister of State.

The Dáil adjourned at 9.40 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 4 February 2010.
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