Denis Naughten
Question:63Deputy Denis Naughten asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the steps he is taking to address the summer flooding in the Shannon callows; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10587/12]
View answerTuesday, 28 February 2012
Questions (8)
Oral answers (1 contributions)
The Deputy has, on a regular basis, raised the matter of management of the River Shannon catchment, which includes the Shannon Callows area and that extensive responses have been provided. The information I am happy to provide remains much the same as that provided previously. In addition, a full corpus of updated information on both the national and Shannon catchment flood risk assessment and management, CFRAM, programmes is available on the respective websites.
I reiterate that the assessment and management of flood risk on the Shannon catchment comes within the CFRAM programme, the national programme covering all national river catchments. The national programme represents a major investment of several tens of millions of euro by the State in a comprehensive study of flood risk, which will produce robust, evidence-based and extensive management plans to drive the management of flood risk across the country. This is a comprehensive undertaking and a significant part of the OPW's resources are being dedicated to ensuring its completion.
Given the scale and nature of the programme over a four year lifecycle, up to the end of 2015, the Deputy will appreciate that clear direction as to improvements in the management of the River Shannon catchment and mitigation of localised flooding risk in areas like the Callows will not emerge until the programme has reached its conclusion. The Government is determined to ensure that a comprehensive CFRAM programme will form the core of a properly informed and managed approach to addressing areas of flood risk in the coming decades. This approach will allow us to go beyond the reactive deployment of resources where OPW generally intervenes with capital works projects after significant flood events to a more anticipatory stance whereby evidence-based and prioritised interventions can be programmed in advance of and in prevention of future flood events.