Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

They qualify for consideration under the minor works scheme. If there is a viable option to prevent a property from being flooded, we do not care who owns that property. The way the metric works is that, the more properties that are impacted, the greater the business case. Notwithstanding that, if a property, and particularly a residential property, is being impacted, the local authority is within its rights to make an application to us in respect of minor works regardless of whether it is local authority-owned, privately owned or community-owned and the application will be considered on that basis. As I mentioned to Deputy Cathal Crowe, that has been a very successful scheme for many local authorities. Some are good. Galway County Council is probably best in class. I will not mention the ones that are not worth mentioning but there are others that could do better. For instance, since 2019, Kilkenny County Council has drawn funding down for 15 different schemes. I am not sure how many properties are covered by those schemes but the total funding drawn down is €1.1 million, which is about the middle of the table. Based on the fact that it is a local authority area with a small population, it is considerable.