Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful for the opportunity to engage with the witnesses. In response to Dr. O'Hagan-Luff's reference to the valuation of trees versus the car park analogy, we need to go back to Brehon law nearly 400 years ago when a value was put on oak, ash and other trees in this country. I do not suggest we go back there but we did do that once. There could be a Private Members' Bill to reintroduce Brehon law.

Especially given the weekend's flooding we had in east Cork, I want to discuss the value of nature in preventing downstream flooding. It is a difficult concept for somebody who just sees the fact that if we pour 1 m or 2 m concrete walls along the river, we protect the town. It is hard to convince people to alter land use upstream, to plant and create more absorbency to prevent that rush of water coming down. We can understand the difficulty. People want concrete walls, not something that is going to take years, even though we know it works.

My first question relates to that challenge. How do we prove and convince that it is a far better use of money, and that it would require far less money, than constant €25 million flood prevention schemes that channel the river and block communities from accessing something they have accessed for many years and impact on biodiversity?

There are a number of issues in that area. For a start, the Arterial Drainage Act 1945 conflicts with what we are trying to do in flood prevention work. I see where it was of use in the past but we have gone way beyond that. It seriously needs reform. Part of the issue in dealing with upstream nature restoration is that we have to deal with the OPW, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, private landowners, Teagasc and a whole range of actors. Do we need to create a single agency that looks at upstream nature restoration to address downstream flooding? Councillors also have a role in this. I note the Office of the Planning Regulator, OPR's, recent comment that it has had to issue more than 40 recommendations on the zoning of lands covered by flood risk mapping. There are many challenges in that area. Is evidence available or how can we convince, for example, the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform and the OPW, that it is better to spend that €25 million upstream on soft engineering than to try to pour concrete on a river?

My heart goes out to the people we saw in Cork last weekend desperately standing in their sitting rooms and in businesses with stock floating by who desperately stated that the river needs to be dredged or cleared. I understand why they think that is a solution but it is not. We would just getting higher volumes of water coming through more quickly and probably further damage. That is not the solution. How can we convince the people who spend and invest the money? I see an environmental, social and governance, ESG, opportunity, which is why corporate ESG opportunities have been mentioned, to invest in upstream nature restoration. Upstream soft engineering would actually create more employment than the building of flood plains or defences would. Flood defences are the ultimate in any management system of an end-of-pipe solution. We need to look at what is coming into the system. That is the challenge. How can we convince people that if we spend €5 million upstream, we will save €25 million downstream while also protecting towns and villages and not simply shunt the problem on to the next town or village, as happens when those walls are poured?