Noel Coonan (Tipperary North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Just before we conclude, I wish to return to something Mr. Dunney said that I found amazing. He said that from the time representations are made, it takes four years, with approximately two years of planning and then 18 months to two years before completion of works. I wonder about the four-year estimate because Mr. Malone would be aware of a flooding problem which has existed in Templemore since at least the 1960s, if not earlier. Successive Ministers, including the current one, and the OPW have been notified about it, representations have been made about it, schemes have been discussed but there has been no delivery. Is it the case that a response is conditional on the size of the population affected and whether an area is close to Dublin as opposed to in the heart of the country? A scheme has been promised by the OPW for a number of years but has yet to even start.