Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I just wanted to ask that question out of interest. Obviously, we are hearing a lot more about one in 100 year events that now seem to be happening three or four times in a period of ten years. Are there revised figures as clearly they are no longer one in 100 year events? They are happening with greater frequency. I remember a very serious event in my area in 2007 in Leopardstown in the middle of the summer. Subsequently €3 million was allocated for the Carysfort and Maretimo stream scheme. In 2011, on the night of the presidential debate, a poor unfortunate garda died in the river. Dundrum Town Centre, the single biggest ratepayer in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council area, was flooded, while there was no Luas service for two days owing to flooding. Flooding is terrible, no matter where and when it happens, but when it happens in urban areas, it tends to be much more costly to deal with it as there is much more infrastructure. Is there a proper programme to clear gulleys and drainage systems all around Dublin and in urban areas generally? While I know that it is a matter for the local authorities, when I am cycling, I can see that drains are blocked and have grass and weeds growing out of them. There is an argument that I have heard made by engineers that the more drains are cleared, the faster water moves further downstream and floods the pumping station in Dún Laoghaire or somewhere else. Presumably the idea behind having drains is to drain water away. If they are full of mud, silt and grass, they are not going to work. Obviously, when there is heavy rainfall, as there was in 2011, it does not matter how clear a drain is as it will not cope with the volume of water entering it. Is there a programme in place in urban areas across the country to keep storm drains clear?

We have all seen the photographs and the aerial footage of houses and cattle in south Galway looking like islands sounded by water. If the same thing that happened in south Galway in 2015 was to happen again in 2016 - we hope it does not - is there a critical emergency plan in place to deal with the situation more efficiently? Obviously, we should learn from the experience of last year.

The Minister referred to the Dodder CFRAMS, which was one of the earliest such studies. He suggested that there is work to be done. He might touch on what works are being done on the Dodder and on its tributary in Dundrum.

I would also like to ask about the voluntary relocation of farmyards, houses, sheds, etc. Can the Minister of State indicate how many houses nationally, or in particular areas, have been looked at with a view to deciding on a cost-benefit basis that rather than protecting these houses against floods, it would be better to move the residents to another location? I do not know whether the number in question is closer to five, 50, 500 or 5,000.

I think everybody here today has been asking for rivers to be cleared of vegetation. It is perfectly logical for people to want improvements to be made in their own areas. There is a view that this often pushes the problem on to the next village, where the flooding might be worse as the water gets faster. I am not saying I share this view. I think the Minister of State was right when he said the best approach is to start at the sea and work back up. There is a body of opinion, particularly among environmentalists, that these rivers should not be drained but that they should be allowed to fill up with silt and vegetation in a natural way. Many people say that rivers were cleared in the old days. Is there a departmental view that river-clearing is good or not good? It could be more nuanced than that. Perhaps river-cleaning is appropriate in some locations but not in others. I have heard people say that there is no way anything should be drained or dredged, that nature is nature and that people should not build near flood plains. Senator Mulherin was right when she said that places which have never before flooded have started to flood. If houses that have stood for 100 or 150 years without flooding are now starting to flood, it is clear that we have issues we did not have before now.

I would like to conclude by mentioning an issue that I intend to raise with the Minister of State later. Ireland's performance results in the global green economy index have declined considerably since 2014. We will not solve flooding automatically by making climate change-related improvements. Nearly everybody accepts that there is a relationship between flooding and climate change, which is causing sea levels to rise and rain patterns to change. We are seeing heavier rainfall at times of the year when we are not used to it. The Government's climate change performance appears to be getting worse. Does the Minister of State have any views on that? What can we do to improve it?