Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

It is of particular importance to residents along the road that the view they have had for a long time should not be taken away from them. The problem for those of us who have been elected to this House is that permission has been granted for the construction of a barrier of the scale in question. It will be almost 3 m high. I am not sure how that slipped by all the vigilant councillors on Dublin City Council. Perhaps it was buried in some of the small print when a detailed analysis was made of the height a flood might reach in the event of high tide coinciding with poor weather. As I understand it, full permission was granted for a barrier 2.75 m high. Obviously, the local people feel very strongly about this and I know they originally gave consent to a barrier of 1.2 m in height. It is not just the Minister, Deputy Bruton, who is concerned about this as many other people are also concerned. There is a huge number of sandbags in the area and flooding has occurred on occasion in particular locations on Clontarf Road, as the Deputy is aware. It is visually appealing for people to be able to see the bay and the sea and to have a polder or levy of that scale would cause people to feel rightly aggrieved.

There is a problem here in that permission was issued for this by Dublin City Council. The question is what can be done about it. As the Deputy is aware, there are some other suspicions about the real nature of the reason for a mound of that scale in the first instance. I share the concern and anxiety as well as the very strong feeling among local people that we should work out some compromise here. Planning permission was granted for this through Dublin City Council. While I am not passing the buck, it is a problem for Deputy McGrath and everybody else who does not have an impact on the planning decisions of the council.

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