Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister and welcome the minor works scheme, which has been very successful throughout the country. The Minister's officials can revert to me on individual home protection schemes and the farmyard relocation scheme, neither of which has got off the ground as yet.

I want to move on to a couple of other matters. The first is the fact that a number of communities are marooned during severe flooding because they have no road access in and out of their areas. That can last for a number of weeks or even months, as happened in Cóis Abhainn in south Roscommon, and people can be impacted by turloughs where the water can be lying on a road for a considerable period. There has been engagement between the OPW and the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport regarding a number of individual roads in Roscommon, Westmeath, Galway, Cavan and Sligo in order to provide a specific scheme to protect and secure access for those communities. The Minister might provide an update on that matter. When I entered office, I authorised Geological Survey Ireland to work with the OPW on a groundwater and turlough flood monitoring programme in Roscommon, Galway and Longford.

I refer to a comment by the chairperson of the OPW, Maurice Buckley, who came before a committee in 2018 and stated that the projected wetter winters, particularly in the west of Ireland, could give rise to increased groundwater flooding associated with turloughs. We have a particular problems with turloughs called Lough Funshinagh in south Roscommon and Correal outside Roscommon town that have threatened and flooded homes in the past. There were serious problems in these areas last winter. We have solutions for the turlough in Castleplunket, but we have to work up solutions for the turloughs in Bushfield and Lisserdrea outside Boyle in Roscommon. In tandem with that, we need to have an effective cost-benefit analysis for turloughs because the water remains for a considerable period and the current cost-benefit analysis does not reflect that. Homes are marooned and flooded and land is flooded for months and, in the case of Lough Funshinagh in south Roscommon, years.

I asked the Minister of State, Kevin Boxer Moran, about the cost-benefit analysis relating to turloughs to which the Government is committed and last month he told me that nothing has yet been done. I ask the Minister that this specific provision be expedited.

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