Mr. Tony Smyth:

Absolutely. To deal first with the development issue, which the Deputy touched on, the production of maps is identifying a risk that already exists but may not be known. Therefore, there will be a point where, while people will say they never experienced a flood, the floods, particularly extreme floods, will be mapping and showing. The importance of doing this is that we can build that into the planning and development decision-making process through the local authorities and the planning authorities. With our colleagues in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, we developed guidelines for flood risk and the planning system. Taken together with the flood maps, these should improve the decision-making about building in areas at risk from flooding, and that should not happen from now on because we now have that information.

A feature of the 2009 flood was the number of people who said they had never experienced a flood and did not expect a flood. Now, with the finalising of the flood maps in the next number of weeks, we will know the extent of the risk. The maps have been out for public consultation in recent months so that piece of work is now drawing to an end. The maps have been available in draft form to the local authorities and will be formally made available to everybody to consult in order to avoid building in areas that are at risk. We also run workshops for planning authority staff to help them understand the maps and understand how they might use them in conjunction with the guidelines. That is an outline of our support to the planning and development decision-making process.

There was a question on the drainage boards. Drainage boards are a feature of the 1925 Act, which did work on what were called drainage districts, of which there are 178 still extant in the country. There were a number of drainage boards, one on the Suck and one on the Barrow, although I am not sure if there were others. They were a co-ordinating mechanism for, I think, elected members, and I am not aware they had a particular staff or budgets of their own as they were drawn from the county councils. As the Deputy rightly said, the responsibility for the maintenance of those rivers remains with the county councils. I am not yet in a position to comment on whether the abolition of the board, as such, has had an effect on the maintenance but I would not expect it to have had because that is unchanged in the way it is delivered.

The Deputy had a question on the finances. We are currently getting €45 million capital a year, which was agreed with Government for the period 2011 to 2016. Even though cutbacks were occurring in other parts of the OPW, as indeed across other Departments, the €45 million was maintained by Government for that period in the comprehensive expenditure review. At the end of the CFRAM process, which is towards the end of this year, we will have looked at all of the 300 areas that have been identified as being areas for further study through the preliminary flood risk assessment. We are developing outline options for those and, at that point, we will have a much better handle on the overall cost of the flood defence works that are required, but that will not be until later in the year.

The Deputy asked why this was not happening sooner. That was the outcome of the discussions with Insurance Ireland when we agreed the format by which data would be made useable for the insurers and put into that format from the completed schemes. It was following the work done as part of the lead-in to the memorandum of understanding with Insurance Ireland that we proceeded to get those schemes across in the format that was useable by the insurance industry.