Mr. Cian ? D?naill:

Before I move on to that, in the new flood relief schemes, the brief was updated such that the consultants must consider nature-based solutions for flood relief schemes. In Clonakilty, while it is not fully nature based, there is upland storage. The water is prevented from going down into the town when it comes into operation, flooding out the land. That is an example. In regard to the question on artificial draining maintenance, an annual programme is produced and all the relevant assessments are done for that. We have environmental guidance about how our operational staff undertake the work. Most of the work they do is covered by catchment-wide appropriate assessment for working in special areas of conservation, SACs. The Cathaoirleach also mentioned a specific project, and something in his own locality, on the Newport River. Sometimes such specific work might need a separate process for the appropriate assessment, AA. The most recent example along the Newport River was a possible breach. Unfortunately, during storms trees fell down and pulled part of the embankment and the berm area. The flow was being diverted to the far bank causing a good deal of erosion. The OPW could not just sit there and wait. We had to go in to repair this because if we had a breach, God knows when we would get back in to repair it. Unfortunately, much clearance was required to get down to the location because there is no access. It is not possible just to drive in there. The ground conditions are poor, especially after all the rain we had. The works that need to be done - the embankment repair - will require a specific natura impact statement, NIS.