The previous issue is not unrelated to the issue I want to raise. The Minister of State has just discussed the macro aspects of the changes we are seeing but I want to examine a micro incident in an area which is deprived and in need of assistance.
In the past 15 years there have been 27 serious floodings in the village of Dromcollogher, County Limerick. The situation became so serious in September 1997 that Limerick County Council decided to request Gibson O'Connor, Consulting Engineers, to examine and report on the overall problem of flooding in the village.
The village has experienced severe flooding over a prolonged period but the most serious event took place on the night of 26 August and the morning of 27 August 1997. On that occasion flooding disastrously affected the eastern part of the village with several homes in the Pike Street area flooded to a depth of 0.5 metres. Water flowed down the road leading from Carroward townland for the full width of the carriageway and inundated Pike Street and Pound Street in the eastern area of the village. Serious overloading of the combined sewers within the village occurred and raw sewage overflowed onto the streets and into the houses. The matter was reported to the Mid-Western Health Board by a local medical practitioner and the board in turn referred the matter to Limerick County Council.
Flooding also occurred on the west side of the village near the church where the Ahavarraga stream overflowed causing flooding to roads in the vicinity. Downstream of the villages, bridges and culverts backed up and surrounding lands were flooded. The undermining of the abutments of one bridge required immediate emergency reconstruction works.
Neither of the two stream channels flowing through the village of Dromcollogher are capable of discharging the level of flooding which occurred. In particular, the channel capacity of the Carroward stream is totally inadequate in the section which passes through the village. Flood relief works to this channel could be carried out either by the construction of a major culvert through the village or by reverting this stream to the Ahavarraga stream upstream of the village and carrying out channel improvement works in the Ahavarraga stream where it passes through the village.
A major problem exists, however, in the river downstream of Dromcollogher. This was clearly demonstrated by the serious flooding which occurred downstream of the village on 26 and 27 August 1997. At that time, a local structural steel fabrication works was inundated and the village sewage treatment works had to be bypassed with raw sewage overflowing directly into the river. Flooding as high as road level was experienced in the Ahavarraga stream and as far downstream as Moyvane Bridge, some two kilometres below the village.
The report produced by Messrs. Gibson O'Connor states: "The very serious lack of capacity in the river below the bridge results in a backwater effect which significantly contributes to the flooding in the village". It is imperative that the co-operation and assistance of the Office of Public Works be obtained with the objective of carrying out channel improvement works at the earliest possible date.
Will the Minister arrange for that to be done because it is almost two years since the report was submitted to him? Until such time as river improvement work is carried out downstream of Dromcollogher, any flood relief works to channels through the village will not effect significant improvements.
I thank the Minister for coming into the House to respond to this serious issue. It affects a small but significant area in west Limerick close to the Kerry border which will soon have funding that will not be available to alleviate the problem in Dromcollogher.
