Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy read out my last line. In the interim, I am satisfied that the identified and assessed flood risk in Cork is being appropriately addressed. CFRAM is a process that has been going on for a number of years. When there were reports prepared, they had to be tested and modelled and maps had to be drawn. The answer I have given the Deputy sets out that the CFRAM process is now coming to an end. When that process has been completed, 300 projects will be ready to start. They will be taken in a prioritised order based on a lot of different criteria. It is a major structural plan for flood relief for the next ten years. What has been done is unprecedented. What has been done has taken about two years off the planning process of any of these projects. Every project I have seen that has been done in the past has taken six to seven years to bring from inception to construction. We will now be short-circuiting that. Of course, in the meantime, people have flooded. We will not get to everybody in the same day. If I was to follow the Deputy's logic, as soon as a report becomes available, we would jump in and do something. I have great sympathy for people who flooded. They flooded all over the country. It is as a result of the volume of rainfall we get. I must assure people in the public that flooding is being dealt with in a coherent way at long last. We have a whole-of-Government approach to this and we will be dealing with each of the areas once they are approved by the Minister.

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