Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will go back to the issue of Blackpool, because I want to go through parliamentary questions that I tabled and where I was misled. The final section of a reply on 11 May 2023 to a parliamentary question stated:

It is my intention to open this period of public consultation during Q2 of this year and a notice outlining the details of this consultation will be made available on the Department's website in due course.

That was in May of this year. In the second quarter of this year that the public consultation was to take place. I refer also to a reply in June which stated that following the proceedings of the judicial review, “my Department sought supplementary information from the Office of Public Works in February 2022”. This goes back nearly two years. It further states:

The OPW submitted supplementary information to my Department in October 2022. This information can be found on the scheme website at floodinfo.ie.

The information that came back from the OPW was in October 2022. It has been 12 months since then and nothing has happened. To say that we are assessing projects within six to eight weeks, as was said in the opening part, does not stand up. It will now be two years before anything will be done. I need a detailed explanation. I went to businesspeople in May and assured them that there would be a public consultation, but it is now being made out that I have been telling them lies. It is unfair that the Department gave out this information in a parliamentary question. There are a number of parliamentary questions where I have been misled. I need an explanation as to why I was misled and why we are now back to square one.