Mr. Jim Casey:

Work is progressing on the main Midleton flood relief scheme. We have effectively concluded stage 1, the design stage, and we estimate that we will be going to planning in September of next year.

The Deputy will appreciate that after Storm Babet and the very severe impact it had on the community we had to look very closely at that event, how it unfolded, and whether the scheme we had designed to that stage was going to be effective in mitigating that type of event going forward. We spent some time looking at that. I am happy to confirm that the design we have for the Midleton scheme will be effective in mitigating flood risk to more than 700 properties in Midleton. We are working hard to bring that forward into the planning stage towards September next year.