Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Can I ask one more question, Chair, if that is okay? This comes back to the flooding which is one of the trickiest ones for us as policymakers in reacting to what communities are looking for in flood prevention. The River Bandon would be one of the biggest rivers in my constituency. The people of Bandon were devastated by multiple floods and there was need for action. The action was fairly hard core and, I would argue, was not very sensitive. Essentially, a whole section of the Bandon River was dredged and a new mountain or hill was created from the dredged material along the road which goes along the Bandon River. One can imagine the devastation. A weir was also put in as a fish pass, which, by all accounts, is not working. If our witnesses are not familiar with that project, that is okay but they might come back to me on it. How long does it take for habitat, wildlife or fish species to respond in an instance like that where that type of devastation has occurred?

An add-on to that question, because our witnesses mentioned the arterial drainage scheme, is around farmers, in particular, looking for sections of a river to be dredged. It makes sense in one way because they have made land and have put a great deal of investment into making land alongside a river bank, with a great deal of effort and hard labour going into making that land. They see it then flooding and perhaps see trees blocking up a river. It is a natural process for rivers to become blocked and for the natural flooding of flood plains. How do we balance that with the agricultural sector in saying that we will compensate it if this happens but that this is a natural occurrence?

If we do not act, however, what happens is that the town farther downstream is flooded. There are a couple of questions there.