Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their attendance. As they are aware, the joint committee is doing a report on flooding and insurance. Of the various elements involved in this issue, prevention is the best. Bodies such as the Irish Insurance Federation have called for more money to be spent on flood alleviation measures. I proposed that the joint committee invite some of those who have direct responsibility for doing remediation work to appear before us as this would allow members to learn lessons about where the system works, where logjams are to be found and so on. That was my motivation for making the proposal.

The photographs provided must have been taken on a summer's day because the areas shown do not look like that at the moment. That the apartments in case study 2 were flooded up to first floor level indicates the extent of the damage that flooding has done. The good news is that despite flooding taking place since some of the works were completed, the locations in question did not flood. That is the best test of flood remediation works.

On the issue of geocoding, I have been contacted by people who have been refused insurance despite their properties having never featured on plans for flood alleviation because they have never experienced flooding. I presume the council will be willing to provide a letter to confirm this is the case. Perhaps the county managers association could consider the universal application of such a system to confirm that houses have not been flooded. In many cases, insurance companies will refuse insurance for properties located within 500 m of a water course, even where the area has not flooded in the past. This is highly unfair.

I am interested in learning a little about OPW direct labour. What size is the crew available to the office? It is useful to have this expertise available for deployment to various locations.

On the process of providing flood remediation, one of the criticisms we have heard is that it takes a long time to have remedies put in place. Are there logjams or particular points in the process that could be improved, especially in the interaction between local authorities and the Office of Public Works? Could the joint committee make recommendations in this regard? While money will always be short, it may be useful to issue some practical recommendations. Have the witnesses any advice? They may revert to us on that matter as it is the type of thing that would be useful to have in our report.

Deputy Stagg will be familiar with the area of the River Liffey near Straffan known as "the jungle". The stretch of river in question has a large amount of silt and the water course is so narrow as to make flooding inevitable. The habitats directive has a bearing on this matter. Perhaps the witnesses will talk us through if and how this problem could be remediated.

The works that were done in the case study of Johnstown were started upstream. There is, however, another problem further downstream. Ideally, one would start works downstream before moving upstream. It would be easier to provide a justification for works on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis if where they are proposed is close to a large number of houses. Does the case in Johnstown defeat the purpose a little? Could the scheme be implemented in a manner that achieves a better outcome, perhaps by taking on board a larger catchment area? I understand the flooding further downstream had not been bad until work was done upstream, although I may be wrong in that regard.

On geocoding, it is appropriate to obtain information on which areas may flood as it helps to avoid the mistakes of the past when development took place in areas prone to flooding. Unfortunately, the insurance companies or the Irish Insurance Federation appear to be using information that should be used to make good decisions in a manner that disadvantages people when they seek insurance. This was not the purpose for which the information was intended.