Thomas Gould
Question:6. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform if he will provide an update on the Glashaboy flood relief scheme. [22063/23]
View answerThursday, 11 May 2023
Questions (6, 25, 44)
Pádraig O'Sullivan
Question:25. Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform if he will provide a further update on the Glashaboy flood relief scheme; if he can provide a timeline as to when it is likely to go to tender; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21895/23]
View answer
Colm Burke
Question:44. Deputy Colm Burke asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform if a decision has now been made in respect of the wording of the contract for the Glashaboy flood relief scheme; if he will outline the date when work will commence on the project; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22084/23]
View answerOral answers (17 contributions)
Will the Minister of State provide an update on the Glashaboy flood relief scheme for Glanmire, please?
I propose to take Questions Nos. 6, 25 and 44 together.
I am pleased to provide an update on the progression of the Glashaboy flood relief scheme at Glanmire-Sallybrook, in Cork. I am advised that the scheme is being progressed by Cork City Council. The OPW, in partnership with the council, is engaging proactively to progress the flood relief scheme for Glanmire.
The Glashaboy flood relief scheme was confirmed in January 2021 by the then Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform under the Arterial Drainage Acts 1945 to 1995 and is being funded from the €1.3 billion in flood relief measures under the national development plan to 2030, and as part of Project Ireland 2040. The scheme will provide protection to some 103 properties, 78 residential and 25 commercial. It will address the flood risk in a number of locations in the area and will include defences such as walls and embankments, culvert upgrades, channel widening and road regrading. An invitation to tender for the civil works contract was issued on 23 January 2023 with a return date of 13 March 2023. Tenders have now been returned and the process of assessment is under way. Cork City Council intend to award the contract in quarter 2 of this year to allow construction works to commence in the middle of this year.
In January of this year after the contracts went to tender for the Glashaboy flood relief works, a commitment was given that construction would start in June. The Minister has said it will be quarter 2 of this year before the contracts are signed and that the work will start before year-end. The people of Glanmire are sick and tired of broken promises from this Government and previous Governments in respect of the protection of their communities. This project has met delay after delay. I recently led a campaign in the area and spoke to homeowners and business owners who are affected by the floods. Their frustration is beyond belief. This flooding can be resolved. This is not a big project, it is a small project but it needs to happen now. One of the main concerns I have about the proposal is that there has been traffic chaos in Glanmire because of works done recently. This work should have been done at the same time. What we are going to see now is more traffic chaos in Glanmire-----
The Deputy will get a chance to come back in.
We were here a few months ago seeking the latest update on this project. I have no doubt we will be here again looking for further updates the next time the Minister of State is taking questions in the Chamber. We welcome the update he has provided. People are getting frustrated. Their frustration does not necessarily stem from the process. The process is the process and it has to happen. There are various legal processes that have to happen. There were issues with the tender and it had to be readvertised. We understand all that. There is a lot of misinformation and disinformation out there and it needs to be called out.
Absolutely.
The Government is going to deliver this scheme. Fair enough, we might all wish that it had happened many months sooner, but this scheme is going to be delivered. I would welcome it if the Minister of State could give reassurance to people. I was listening to his discussion with Deputy Conway-Walsh earlier. Obviously, there are difficulties in other parts of the country with OPW schemes. I ask the Minister of State to reaffirm the commitment that this will be delivered on time.
I welcome the Minister of State's comments. One of the problems we have now in respect of the tendering process is the long period from when the tenders come in to when they are signed off on. That has happened on quite a number of projects over recent years and costs continue to rise. It is really important that there is no further delay in awarding the contract. After that, the timescale must be short for the person who is awarded the contract to accept it and say they are signing off on it and are going to commence the project. Given that costs have risen substantially over the last 18 months, I am wondering whether the process we now have for contracts can be reviewed to provide a faster response in giving decisions and starting the projects when the contracts are awarded.
On the last point, and going back to Deputy Conway-Walsh's remarks about the public spending code and delivery of capital projects, this is an example of it. We are not the tendering authority here. Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan is absolutely right that there is a huge amount of misinformation here. I would love to know exactly what delay the Government has put in place to prevent this scheme. I am not aware of any delay that the OPW has put in place. Deputy Gould might be able to enlighten me.
I will.
I would be delighted to hear that. We are not the contracting authority, in case it escaped the Deputy's knowledge. It is a matter for Cork City Council. In the first instance, Cork City Council's tendering process collapsed because a tenderer had to withdraw. I do not know if the Deputy would advocate for having no tendering process. Maybe he wants a cheque to be written to whoever is the preferred person locally. In his world he might be able to do that but in the world of accountability, governance and oversight, for which Deputy Conway-Walsh, as her party's spokesperson, will hold me to account, that cannot happen.
The Minister of State talks about misinformation. I will give him the truth. In 2016, this work was to be carried out at a cost of €8 million. Now the work is being tendered for an expected €17 million. The cost is actually criminal. It is because of the Government's mismanagement, doddering and failure to deliver flood relief for Glanmire. Not alone has it doubled in value; we also have the many times Glanmire has flooded or been at risk of flooding because the Government has failed. The Minister of State should not tell me about misinformation. He should go down to the people of Glanmire and invite my colleagues, who know well what is happening, along to see the businesses and homes that were destroyed and have no insurance. I have been in Glanmire three times in the last six months when it was on the edge of flooding, when water came up through drains and the fire brigade had to come out and bring in pumping stations. There is no misinformation. I know what I am saying.
It must be said that the Minister of State himself did come on-site a number of months ago, just as the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, did before him, and that has to be welcomed. Both of them reiterated on site to the people they met that day, residents and businesses, that money is not an issue. The issues concerned the process that was being undertaken initially and then, subsequently, the tender. The rules and regulations are there and need to be respected. Deputy Colm Burke makes one valid point. We are literally at the finish line now in delivering this project. It is about getting it over the line. If we can maximise or optimise those little time lags between the city council and the contractor going into the next few months as the tender is finalised, cutting those couple of weeks or months might give people great reassurance that the scheme is actually going ahead. If they see works taking place later this year, that is the most reassurance we can give them.
In fairness, I think everything has been done by the Department. As the Minister of State outlined, the matter comes under the remit of Cork City Council. We must make sure that a timely decision is made by the council to award the contract and that the person who gets it accepts it in a timely manner in order that we will not have to go back out to tender at a later stage.
This is a vital project for the Glanmire area. Very little has happened there because of the wait for the scheme to be put in place. We and the city council need to give priority to signing off on a contract and then getting the work itself done.
In the context of general flood relief schemes nationally, another scheme the Minister of State is more than aware of and has been exceptionally supportive of is the south Galway Gort lowlands flood relief scheme. The scheme is encountering a major problem because Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, constructed a motorway right through the heart of the region affected and did not build sufficient capacity into the culverts under the motorway. That now has the potential to derail the whole process. The costs associated with remedying this problem with the motorway will become part of the issue for the overall cost-benefit analysis. I therefore encourage the Minister of State and his officials to engage directly with TII to have this issue resolved and to ensure TII accepts full responsibility for the lack of capacity in these culverts and covers the cost of making them sufficiently large so as not to cause flooding in the region.
When will the capital works management framework be published? It began in March 2019. It is beyond urgent that it be published to bring clarity to much of what we are talking about.
I will get a response directly from the Minister's office to Deputy Conway-Walsh.
On the scheme Deputy Cannon raised, it is my intention to go to Galway shortly to meet the county council in respect of this. I have been there a number of times already in respect of other schemes and I must say the county council is to the fore in delivering an awful lot to the schemes.
On the question that was asked here, I am not interested in dúirt bean liom go ndúirt bean léi; I can only go on the basis of what actually happened. What happened was that in 2020, as part of the Minister's consideration, further additional information was requested on the Glashaboy scheme on 5 May. Subsequent to that, a tender collapsed and had to be readvertised by Cork City Council. I have been down to Glanmire and met the community and residents there. I have every confidence in the city council to deliver the scheme, as I have every confidence in the council to deliver the badly needed Morrison’s Island scheme, which we are delivering, as well as the wider Cork city flood relief scheme, which will go from Cork Harbour all the way back to Ballincollig. I hope everybody in this House will be as supportive of those schemes in Cork as they are here. By the way, I do not need a postcard campaign, which has gone down really badly in the local community because the community knows the OPW and the city council are on their side. We do not need a postcard campaign that is attempting to drum up unnecessary worry and anxiety for people who are already worried and anxious about their futures.
Question No. 7 taken with Written Answers.