Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

For further clarification, first, this is not a meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts. Second, we will spend €430 million in the first five years from 2016 to 2021. More funding will be made available after that. I wish to reiterate in order that the public knows this that money is being spent on flood defences in a serious way. We will be cranking up expenditure each year from €50 million in capital expenditure on flood defences to address flood risk up to €100 million within the next two years.

While I understand that people experience flooding, the reality is that we will not fix everything before this winter or before the next flood. However, we will tackle it in a strategic way and give the most protection to most people as quickly as possible. That is how the priority list will be prepared. It is important the people have the message that we are serious about the fact that flooding is a problem. It is not something that happens once in every 100 years. That has been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt. The Government accepts that. The money is being made available. Let nobody think this will be fixed in one, two or three years.

In our constituency, for instance, work has started on the Dunkellin scheme. That was being talked about in the 1960s and is in the Dáil Official Report. There has been a lot of talk, but now we are seeing the start of the action on flood relief.