Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Our hearts go out to the people who have been affected by flooding over the past number of weeks. In some cases, people have been affected more than once. It is a devastating experience for people to have their homes flooded and I have enormous sympathy for their plight. I want to pay tribute to the workers and volunteers on the ground whose efforts in these awful weather conditions have helped to mitigate the impact of the flooding.

The Government has acted on this issue. We discussed it at Cabinet on Tuesday and are taking action on a number of fronts. Indeed, the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Hayes, is in Cork today as part of that exercise. In the first instance, the Department of Social Protection assists households in the aftermath of emergency events such as flooding with urgent needs payments to cover clothing, food and emergency accommodation costs. The Department of Social Protection has funding available now in the form of a humanitarian assistance scheme to assist people whose homes were damaged by flooding and who are not in a position to meet the costs of essential needs. Local Department of Social Protection officials are engaging with the local authorities and a protocol has been established whereby they will carry out an assessment of the level of assistance required on a house-by-house basis.

The national co-ordination group on severe weather met on Tuesday, Wednesday and again this morning to review the situation to date and to consider the ongoing threats from storms, tidal conditions and river flooding. The Government decided on Tuesday to make an immediate initial allocation of €15 million for emergency purposes, pending a fuller assessment of the situation over the coming days and weeks. The Defence Forces and the Civil Defence have been deployed to give practical assistance as necessary.

A total of €320 million has been spent on flood defences up to 2013. Of this figure, €25 million relates to the minor flood works and coastal protection scheme introduced in 2009. An additional amount of approximately €50 million has been spent on other programmes, mainly the catchment flood risk assessment and management studies. A total of €45 million has been allocated to the OPW for flood risk management in 2014. This will enable construction to continue on four capital schemes, a further six projects to begin construction and 22 other projects to continue to be advanced towards implementation, subject to satisfactory progression through planning and design stages. The OPW will also continue to operate the minor flood works and coastal protection scheme, which provides funding to local authorities to allow them to carry out smaller-scale flood mitigation and coastal protection projects in their areas. Approximately €250 million is planned to be spent on flood defences over the next five years. Together with the local authorities, we will have to assess whether that will be sufficient to meet future needs.

The local authorities are also now required, as an integral part of their development planning process, to consider climate adaptation measures, including the risk of flooding. At the request of the Government, the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government is currently collating more detailed reports from local authorities on the clean-up response, repair and restoration costs. This report will be submitted to the Government next Tuesday and will include measures relating to the funding and co-ordination of clean-up, repair and remedial works.

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