Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 5 Oct 1999

Vol. 508 No. 3

Adjournment Debate. - Water and Sewerage Schemes.

Mr. U. Burke:

I thank the Minister for coming to the House to reply to this debate. For over ten years, the south Galway drainage action committee of the IFA has campaigned vigorously to have this problem resolved. It has had umpteen meetings with various Ministers of respective Governments, all to no avail, with one exception. The time for delaying tactics is over.

There were long delays following the bad flooding of 1991, which was repeated in 1994 and 1995 and which resulted in the commissioning by the Office of Public Works of a report on the flooding of south Galway undertaken by Dr. Peech. Further delays were caused by the requirement of a cost benefit analysis immediately afterwards. Despite all these delays, the Minister has made no commitments in the last two and a half years. On 20 May last, the Minister met a committee representing the action group and the public representatives from east Galway. He gave undertakings then that he would investigate through the Office of Public Works certain minor remedial schemes that could be undertaken at very low cost.

We saw the commitment of the previous Government in the provision of funding for a low cost scheme which had tremendous positive results in the area of Kilterrnan. The committee pointed out to the Minister that such other remedial works could be undertaken at a very low cost. However, the Minister has sat on the report and all the information available to him and done nothing. There are four Ministers of State from County Galway in the Government but where is the Government's commitment to the people of south Galway if the four Ministers of State cannot ask the Minister of State to deliver remedial drainage and flood alleviation plans at a very low cost?

The problem which recurred after only 48 hours of heavy rain a fortnight ago is another indication of how serious the problem is becoming. The problem does not only have natural causes. It has been exacerbated by reafforestation which has recreated drainage on the mountains and allowed water to flow freely down into the area, particularly around Kilchreest and Roxborough. Refurbishment of a half mile stretch and the removal of rock along 50 to 100 metres would divide the water of the Roxborough river, sending part of it down to what is known locally at The Seven Eye Bridge and the rest into the Aggard river. This would not involve an insurmountable cost.

Regarding Termon, the Minister gave undertakings to the committee on the day they met that he would get the Office of Public Works to investigate the possibility of diverting the flood waters away to Kilmacdough. I do not know what is available to the Minister in terms of information because he has kept it to himself. When the Minister visited south Galway last June, he was accompanied by the Minister of State from east Galway who was seeking election to the European Parliament and turning his back on the people of south Galway. Alas, he is still a Member of the House and must face the music. He failed the people once more by failing to get away.

I ask the Minister to name a date on which he will authorise the start of these flood alleviation works or will he condemn indefinitely the people of south Galway to hardship? The only solution that has come forward is resettlement in this area, which could create a paradise for botanists and ecologists in the region. If the Minister wants to preside over such a situation, he should say so; otherwise, he should state how much money he will provide for these remedial drainage works.

Minister of State at the Department of Finance (Mr. Cullen):

I thank Deputy Burke for giving me this opportunity to inform the House of the up to date position regarding the three minor schemes, namely Termon flood alleviation scheme, Mannin Cross flood alleviation scheme and the Culvert Sites. As the Deputy said, earlier this year I visited south Galway and saw the areas in question at first hand. Before progressing further it is appropriate to recap briefly on what has happened to date regarding the flooding problems in south Galway since late 1994/early 1995 when the heavy flooding occurred.

In August 1995 the Government commissioned a major multi-disciplinary study of the problem with the following objectives: to define the current flooding problem; to define the hydrological/hydrogeological processes; to assess the effects of climate change; to quantitatively define the flood hazard in terms of land inundated for specific return periods, economic value and social implications; to quantify and rank the environmental importance and economic value of the various wetlands; to propose engineering solutions in terms of relative alleviation of risk and evaluate their economic costs and social and environmental implications and to evaluate the economic and social impacts of non-technical issues/proposals.

The Deputy will be aware that the final report was published at the end of May 1998 and it was discussed at a public meeting in Gort in July 1998 which was attended by the various experts who helped to compile it and also by officials of the Office of Public Works. I responded to a similar Adjournment Debate on this subject on 3 June 1998.

Among the main recommendations derived from the conclusions of the study and contained in the final report are that detailed studies should be carried out with regard to the implementation of peripheral engineering schemes at the Culvert Sites, Mannin Cross and Termon; rainfall and river flows, turloughs and groundwater levels should be monitored for a further three year period to clarify the value of currently used rainfall and flood return periods for engineering design and to increase confidence of model calibration and validation and that the design and calibration of all models should be updated and refined with further inputs and the models used to study the effects of floods of differing magnitudes.

As mentioned, the report indicated that three small peripheral engineering schemes at the Culvert Sites, Mannin Cross and Termon could be implemented if detailed, environmental and economic assessments confirmed viability. I gave assurances, and issued instructions accordingly, that every effort should be made to assess the viability of these three schemes as soon as was practicable. That was part of the reason I visited south Galway a few months ago. In March this year the Commissioners of Public Works appointed consulting engineers to examine again in detail the three areas outlined. The reports have recently been finalised.

With regard to the Culvert construction and clearance works, the consultants concluded that "as no housing, industrial or commercial developments of any value lay within the floodplain area to benefit from the proposed works at these sites, the economic benefits arising following project implementation would be limited to the maintenance of existing agricultural development." In essence, the capital costs of the scheme works would far outweigh any benefits to be derived.

With regard to Mannin Cross, the consultants found that using standard accepted methods of economic assessment and the estimated return periods for the flooding, the costs of the works would again far outweigh the benefits to be derived from the works. It was found that the 1994-95 flood, which the experts estimated as a one in 35 year event, would have to become a more frequent occurrence in order to justify this scheme on economic grounds.

The consultants, having examined proposals for alleviation of flooding in the Termon area, considered that on balance it was not possible to definitively promote a scheme which only had a neutral cost benefit analysis and which had particular negative environmental impacts. The Deputy is aware of these.

The outcome of the examination, as I stated in response to Parliamentary Question No. 409 on Wednesday last week, shows that there is not a cost beneficial solution in any of the cases regardless of environmental considerations based on a flood return period of one in 35 years.

In line with the recommendations of the south Galway flood study, arrangements are in place to monitor closely all water levels at key locations within the study area to increase the confidence of model calibration and validation. If this continued, monitoring should demonstrate changes in the climate cycle or in the return period of the flood event of 1994-95, the assumptions which underpin the model and its cost benefit analysis can be revisited.