Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government launched a national CFRAM programme of 120 new flood relief schemes in 2018. While Midleton was part of this programme, major flooding in 2015 and again in 2016 was the catalyst to commence work on the design of the scheme. Cork County Council, which is leading the design of the scheme, appointed engineering and environmental consultants in 2017. Designing any flood relief scheme is complicated and requires data on flood sources and their associated risks. To date, some 100 schemes are at design and construction stage around the country. Midleton has proven to be one of the most complex schemes. As Deputy Stanton and other Deputies from the constituency will recognise, it has flood risks from four sources; namely, fluvial, tidal, groundwater and pluvial. In 2017 data did not exist on all sources and monitoring was required over a number of years to allow the flooding mechanism to be understood for the design of the scheme.

The need to gather data and the changes in regulatory requirements, including with regard to environmental assessments, increased the scale and scope of the design project. Three public participation days were held in 2017, 2020 and 2022, all of which were very well attended. As well as being a way of engaging with the local community on the scheme’s progress, these events served to gather additional information and assess the community's views on the emerging and more recently preferred option for the Midleton scheme. The preferred scheme has now been identified with a total budget of €50 million, which is three times the original budget from 2017. This highlights the scale of the project’s increase in scope. It also highlights that we have designed a scheme that is robust, supported by strong evidence, has the support of the community and is future-proofed and adaptable to climate change scenarios. The preferred option protects 580 properties against a one-in-100-years flood event, can give back flood insurance to the town and stands up to scrutiny once completed.

Having invested eight years in arriving at a preferred scheme, an assessment following Storm Babet is under way so we know we have a scheme that can meet the standard of protection required by the insurance industry. This assessment will take in the order of six to eight weeks. The next major step is to seek planning consent. Work has already begun on the environmental surveys to allow us to start the planning consent process early in 2024.

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