Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful to the Deputy for raising this question, which gives me an opportunity to address the House on the subject.

The Office of Public Works has been working in close co-operation with Kilkenny County Council in recent years to assist the council in developing an application for funding assistance under the OPW's minor flood mitigation works and coastal protection scheme to deal with the flooding problems in the areas mentioned by the Deputy. Earlier applications for funding under the scheme lacked sufficient information to allow a decision to be taken on them. Discussions have taken place between the OPW regional engineering staff and their counterparts in the council over the period to clarify certain important matters relating to the flooding problem and its impact on properties and lands in the affected area.

In May 2016, Kilkenny County Council submitted an application for funding under the minor works scheme to undertake studies in two locations. The first of these was for Fanningstown-Owning and the second one was for Knockhouse to Portnascully via Dungooly.

I am informed by my officials that consideration of the application is now nearing finalisation and that a letter will issue to the council in the coming days indicating funding approval of €18,000 in total for the projects in question.

A total of 11 projects have been approved for County Kilkenny since the minor works scheme was introduced in 2009 with total funding approval of almost €1.1 million. This scheme is of great benefit and assistance to local authorities in addressing small-scale flooding issues by providing the necessary funding to carry out the required studies and works to alleviate such issues within their administrative areas.

The scheme has been very successful to date, with more than 560 projects being approved to the value of approximately €37 million, which has helped provide flood protection to over 5,000 properties. I have very recently written to every local authority encouraging them to consider and review the possibilities within their areas for continued and, where possible, increased use of the scheme.

The Deputy will also be aware of the catchment flood risk assessment and management, CFRAM, programme, which lies at the core of the assessment of flood risk and long-term planning of flood risk management measures throughout the country. When each of the flood risk management plans being produced under the CFRAM programme, currently at consultation stage, are finalised, specific flood risk management measures will be identified and prioritised and will form the basis for a long-term investment programme for flood risk management in Ireland. As many of these measures will be small scale and will fall within the financial threshold of the minor works scheme, each local authority will play its part in the implementation of the measures in the context of the scheme.

The Suir CFRAM plan, which covers these areas, will be placed on public consultation next week when members of the public and elected representatives will have an opportunity to make submissions. There are no measures proposed in the plan for the Mooncoin area but there are proposals for the Pilltown area to deal with flooding problems there.

The Government has committed to increasing the budget allocation for capital flood relief activities to €430 million over the period 2016-2021 and I am confident its strategy to manage flood risk will better prepare Ireland to manage the threat of flooding into the future.

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