I am disappointed that the Minister cannot accept the amendment because the purpose of the amendment is to bring emergency drainage under control. There is no point in talking about local authorities because they will not act in an emergency. A week after an emergency they will raise roads and place paths through fields and they will say it is their job to keep the roads clear. However, this adds to the long term problem. If a particular stretch of road is flooded, the local authority will raise it by three or four feet, but the following winter it becomes a dam and causes further flooding. However, the local authority will say it is its responsibility to keep the road clear.
The scheme to which I referred went as far as the national secondary route between Kilcolgan and Ballinderreen. The local authority refused to allow the scheme to cross the road. It took five weeks to get the works licensed. Only for the fact that a nursing home, a national school and roads were flooded and there was a threat to houses, it would still not be licensed by the local authority. It said it was not responsible for drainage despite the fact that in the past 15 years the same local authority raised the Kilcolgan-Ballinderreen road by five or six feet in places and stopped the natural flow of water to the sea a mile and a half away. Although the drainage scheme had done all the work as far as the Ballinderreen road and from that road for a further mile and a half to the sea, in co-operation with the local farmers, the local authority still refused to open the road. We can forget about local authorities responding to emergencies.
In support of Deputy Ahern's amendment, if the commissioners took over that responsibility, it would stop groups like that with which I was involved doing the work themselves. I am delighted that the group did so because it was contentious and its work was borne out of the frustration of seeing the road cut off. In 1990-91 when water on the Caheradoo road flooded nine houses, their occupants were unable to use the road until 15 May, three months after the flooding.
On this occasion they were able to drive on the road after twelve hours because of the relief drainage. I do not believe that will always happen, although in this instance the group was responsible and the sea was only four miles away. People will take emergency action to relieve flooding in their village, house or land, with possible damage to people downstream. I want to avoid that situation by giving this responsibility to the Office of Public Works. This amendment is a vehicle to give the Office of Public Works that responsibility.
The Office of Public Works could, for example, cut through a hill for 500 metres so water could travel to a lake, which would relieve flooding in a village. If the lake then rose by four or five feet, it could drain it into the sea a mile away. Such a simple decision could be made in an emergency situation. If people in Caheradoo had not taken on this responsibility, the local authority or the Office of Public Works would have been responsible for nine houses being under water. Somebody in the nursing home or national school which were flooded could have died. The septic tank in the national school was flooded and the children drank water from the same source. If ten or 15 of those children had ended up in hospital, who would have been responsible? The local authority washed its hands of that.
I want the Office of Public Works to deal with emergencies by quick action. One would need to visit these places to understand the hardship, frustration and pain suffered by these people. As a result of the action taken by the people of Caheradoo, that village will never be flooded again. This involved only the removal of surplus water, not draining turloughs or lakes, and channelling it, partly through a natural course, five and half miles to the sea. Channels of 500 or 600 metres were required in two or three locations to channel the water through hills and across the national secondary road which was flooded because the local authority had raised it over a number of years to relieve flooding.