Deirdre Clune (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

On Wednesday 11 November, there was severe flooding in areas of Cork, such as Togher, Rochestown, Passage West, Glenbrook, Monkstown, Carrigaline and Ballygarvan. There was damage to housing, public property, roads and an alarming situation materialised in Glenbrook, when a stream burst it banks, the water running down a road and sweeping 12 cars with it. They literally flowed down the hill. It was a highly dangerous situation where someone could have been injured or killed. Fortunately, no one was, one of the better notes of the disastrous situation that happened last week in the area.

I have looked at the OPW website and there was similar flooding in the Cork region in November 2002 and October 2004. On both those occasions, there was heavy rain, of the order of 40 millimetres. Last week the Met Office reported rainfall of up to 19 millimetres. On both the previous occasions there was also a high tide. This time we did not have a high tide, it was about 6 p.m. and a high tide was not due until midnight. It is important to acknowledge that the cause of the severe flooding was totally land-related. There have been reports of gullies not being cleaned and capacity problems in the infrastructure.

People want to know now what steps will be taken by Cork County Council and the OPW to compensate those people whose property was damaged. We need to know in the Cork region the cause of the problem and what must be done to ensure it will not occur again. Looking back at the previous reports on flooding on the area, they refer to a lack of capacity but we need a full, in-depth report on what is going wrong and why these areas are susceptible to such severe flooding.

The Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, launched a flood risk report in Cork earlier this year and he said he was sure the people of Cork would consider it entirely appropriate they set a standard for the country. The standard set last Wednesday night was not one that should be reflected across the country.

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