Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to address this topic. Like a number of previous speakers, I am familiar with the important work of the OPW on flood relief, particularly from my time as a county councillor in Meath. I worked on the CFRAM and FEM FRAM programmes in the east Meath and Fingal area up towards Ashbourne. I commend that work. In my experience, we had works in Ashbourne, which are ongoing, as a result of flooding in 1986 and 2002, before my time, but when I was a councillor, we had very bad floods there in November 2014 and a flood alleviation scheme as a result. Like everything, it did not come quickly enough and there was not enough money and so on, but I commend David Keyes from Meath County Council and the officials from the OPW and the Department who worked with local public representatives and local residents to move that project along. I hope it will meet its completion date.

I have a couple of questions. The first broadly concerns the role of the OPW, not just in flood relief but also its management of a number of very important sites, including heritage sites, which are vulnerable to climate change. I spoke to the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Madigan, during an earlier session about this matter. What plans does the OPW have regarding heritage sites and the mitigation of the threat of climate change, whether in terms of flooding, extreme weather events or other issues?

The other point I wanted to raise was the important role of the OPW as a notifiable body in planning. We have seen the bad aspects of planning in the recent past with houses built on flood plains. What efforts will be made by the OPW working with local authorities to ensure we do not see those situations again? My fear is that we will continue to see them.

See this speech in context