Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have the opportunity to talk about this very important topic. The situation is very serious. I ask the Minister to listen to us as we are on the ground and we know what is happening. There is nothing more horrible than when a house gets flooded and the water comes in the door or comes up the toilets, and the mess that leaves behind is never forgotten by the family it happens to. It has happened a lot in our area.

I am glad that, in one instance, after several deputations, many motions and my request to the then Minister of State, Kevin Boxer Moran, to come to Glenflesk, he duly responded and he gave us a small amount of money, €160,000 or so, to clear the bushes on a section of that river. We were told by Tobin Consulting Engineers and by the CFRAM study that to do that work would only reduce the level of the river by 10 mm. Until then, 16 houses were being flooded and the national primary road, the N22, was being flooded. That work was carried out in 2019 and in all the floods we have had since then, even recently, no house was flooded and the road was not flooded. Nonetheless, sections of work remain to be done. The rest of the river from Gortacoosh and on to the lakes at Muckross has to be done, as well as the area coming out of the lakes and back along the river all the way to Castlemaine harbour.

I will give one example of the situation. The family at the very reputable Lake Hotel in Killarney had their premises flooded and it had to be refurbished and restored at a savage cost. Their position is still the same. The Laune river has been narrowed with bushes and with silt building up, and that work needs to be done urgently so what happened to them in 2015 and 2016 will not happen again.

Kenmare, close to my own area, has been flooded, including businesses such as the Quill family business and the Horseshoe bar, and people in the square are under constant threat any time it rains. There is a fall away from this square, and issues need to be rectified, such as removing a sewer that is blocking the iron bridge. There is a fall to the bay and that work needs to be done.

It is common sense. I thank the Minister of State for coming to Kenmare and listening to those located in the square, which I appreciate very much. Sneem village is being flooded and if there is any shower at all at the Inny bridge west of Waterville, that place is flooded. There are also places like Castleisland and the small rivers around it. The problem is that the local farmers and landowners are not allowed to take one spoon of silt out of the rivers, but then the town gets flooded. The main river out of Castleisland needs to be cleaned out, given it was done in the 1960s and has not been done since. Ongoing maintenance work is needed and it would not take millions to do this work. It is only common sense. There are plenty of excavators and all kinds of technical equipment for taking levels, so there should be no reason that this work is not carried out immediately. As I said, work needs to be done at White Bridge on the Flesk river near Killarney, given that a caravan park there has been destroyed on many occasions.

We then come to the small but important things. The section man on the road was keeping the inlets open and ensuring the drains were kept open, but that is not happening. This means floods are going into people's yards and in their front doors, and the road is now the river in many instances because the drains and inlets are not opened. This is very simple, common-sense work. We have no need for all these reports and assessments. It is common-sense work. If the Minister of State visited these places, he would see what needs to be done. There is surely enough equipment in the country to carry out the work, and the manpower as well.

See this speech in context