Mr. Jim Casey:

As the Deputy knows, the scheme commenced with the appointment of consultants in December last year. The OPW has signed a memorandum of understanding with Dublin City Council to progress the project. It is currently of about €20 million in value to protect 1,441 properties. It is at stage 1. A public participation day was held in April of this year to canvass the views of the local community. The report of that consultation event has been published on the project website. It highlighted some of the issues that are of concern to the community, including some of those just mentioned by the Deputy.

We do not have a detailed programme to get to construction yet. It is at stage 1. It is probably going to take two to three years to conclude and to bring forward options to go to planning with. The submission for planning is currently scheduled for December 2027, and that is the timeline for getting the project into planning. Given its scale and the environmental designations of the area, we will need to do a lot of work in engaging with all of the community stakeholders, and a lot of environmental assessments will need to be carried out. A lot will depend on where the defensive structures are located, and whether they need to be located on the foreshore or set back from the foreshore. A lot will depend on that. All the options are being looked at by the consultants at the moment. We will have further engagement with the community shortly.