Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)

I am informing the Minister that the chairman of An Bord Pleanála identified a problem. He stated that if councillors rezoned land on flood plains, for example, An Bord Pleanála might have to override those rezonings on the grounds that it would be on flood plains and that there may be issues of compensation to the land developers. That is not good enough. There should be a mandatory requirement on councillors and county development plans not to rezone on flood plains. These issues are particularly related to climate change. There will be much more rainfall in the future. There will be more extreme weather events. For example, a few years ago Lucan experienced its worst flooding in 100 years. That type of flooding might happen every 50 years or 20 years in the future. The Department has quoted studies which state that there will be a 2% increase in temperature——

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