Mr. Koen Verbruggen:

I have sent the committee an update on the statement we provided in May. I will not read through the full statement but will focus on the main update.

As the Chairman noted, we have taken a lead on groundwater flooding because of our work on the groundwater programme which prior to this had focused on groundwater pollution and protection issues. We are working a great deal with the EPA and Irish Water.

In 2016, A Programme for a Partnership Government, under the area of climate change and flooding, contained an objective on turlough systems, namely, that the Government “will provide resources to the OPW to commission studies into individual problematic (prone to flooding) Turlough systems, if requested by a local authority or another relevant State agency.” That is what our programme has been designed to do.

The GSI has progressed this to the point of near completion of the first phase. In the first quarter of 2019, GSI will deliver groundwater flood maps to the OPW as required under second implementation cycle of the EU Floods Directive. That has involved instrumenting up to 60 of these turloughs. We have had data loggers and have also developed a methodology for studying them which uses the European Space Agency's Copernicus Programme data which enables us to look back at the historical record and create stage maps to display how they have responded. They are quite complex as they behave quite differently to river flooding which is much more flashy and responds indirectly to groundwater.

On the monitoring side, we now have realtime data from more than 12 of these turloughs and from the flood mapping. The mapping for the whole country will be complete by the first quarter of 2019.

On the flooding at Ballycar, the turlough is included in the GSI's flood mapping operations using the Copernicus Programme data which we demonstrated to the committee on the last occasion with slides. The turlough, as well as some other flood prone areas along the western railway corridor, is being monitored using Copernicus satellite imagery. This monitoring technique is still being developed but preliminary data for Ballycar turlough is available to the OPW and Irish Rail.

We have been invited to take part in the technical subcommittee meetings regarding the flooding and will attend the next meeting on 17 December in Ennis when we will provide an update and ensure that the data is being used.