Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this. I come from Galway city and represent the city and the county. The Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, who is present, is well aware of the problems in Galway. The latest one was in Clifden in early September when the Owenglen river surged unexpectedly and severely. It caused severe flooding damage. The rain was unexpected and the flooding was sudden and severe. We can list the number of people and properties affected.

I have with me a report of the flood policy review carried out when Tom Parlon was the Minister of State in 2002. It is a detailed report on the flood measures that must be taken. The problems were highlighted 18 years ago. We have moved to a completely different level since then. I am not here to give out. I am saying that we must work together. We have no choice. We are facing both a biodiversity emergency and a climate emergency. I welcome the motion, although I do not agree with it in its entirety. I certainly agree with what the Rural Independent Group is trying to bring to our attention, but the elephant in the room is climate change. I will return to the local matters relating to local authorities and maintenance, which I agree with, but the climate change challenge and our emergency declaration have brought this to a new level. Now we have to be grown up adults, because that is what the children are begging us to do, and state the challenges we face.

The Office of Public Works has done a brilliant job. I am one of its greatest admirers. It has worked for many years to produce various plans. Politicians were kept quiet when that was taking place. That process is complete and now it is rolling out the projects it has identified and providing resources. We must have an adult conversation on that. The national plan for the next ten years has provided for a certain amount of money, but the Dáil has been talking about monopoly money in the past few years. I want to know what is needed so we can protect our communities, the money that is necessary and the timescale to roll it out. Most importantly, what is the driving force? Who is now driving this?

As has been mentioned, the local authorities have been starved of funding. There is a blame game taking place all the time. I have visited the county councils, as all Deputies have, and am told they do not have money. We are also being told they are cutting back on services. The Rural Independent Group made a point about ongoing maintenance. I live in The Claddagh. I am lucky in the sense that where I live is slightly higher than other houses and I have not been affected by flooding, although my office has. Other houses, however, have repeatedly been subject to flooding. There is the insurance problem and the maintenance problem on the streets. Let us take that practical problem. I use a bicycle and I cycle through floods. I praise the council because its workers come out when one calls them, but there are ongoing problems because of a failure to tackle the source of the problem. On the one hand we are encouraging cycling and walking, yet we are flooding people. However, that is minor. My inconvenience is minor compared to what households suffer when houses are flooding and they cannot get insurance. I welcome the Minister of State's confirmation that he is disappointed that progress with the insurance industry has not been as good with regard to the demountable solutions. They appear to be an integral part of the solution and if the insurance industry is not going to proceed with us on that, God help us.

Galway has been flooded many times. There has been a debacle over what looks like a long tube in the Spanish Arch. It has been subject to puncture and I have no idea of the cost involved. It is being replaced. We are in that type of debacle with regard to what the solution is. I have the presentation to the council in 2018 and, as I will stick to my time, I will not go through it. It identified the areas in Galway, including my area, the Claddagh basin, The Long Walk, Salthill, the Dock Road and down by what is called the swamp, appropriately, but known as South Park. That is where walls of 1.2 m will be built. Obviously, it will cause consternation. What we need is open communication with people, a recognition that works must be done to protect us and to identify the best works while bearing in mind that Galway is a tourism city. It is dependent to a massive extent on tourism. The Claddagh basin is a protected structure, as are parts of The Docks. How do we marry these two issues and do it in the most open and accountable way possible?

I have a difficulty. I worked at local authority level for 17 years. The Wolfe Tone Bridge is the last bridge where one can see the powerful water from the Corrib going through. Three reports were done on that bridge. The first two told us that there was an urgent need to impose weight restrictions to stop heavy vehicles crossing it. We never got sight of any of the reports but the third report told us that, suddenly, we did not need weight restrictions on the bridge. I am cynical and I suspect it was because it was impossible to impose restrictions on the most important bridge in Galway. However, this bridge is in trouble. It has been cited as a bridge that requires work to be done on it. I use that as an example. It does not inspire me with confidence when we get two reports telling us to do something and the third report does not. Now we are into a phase where Galway is referring to consultants. With Clifden it went to consultants to get the solution to what happened with the Owenglen river.

We must tell people openly and honestly that we have a problem here because of climate change. There is also a problem because we neglected it for donkeys' years. We left the OPW struggling and we ran down and denuded our local authorities.

We took away their staff and expertise and we set up Irish Water, which is another story. Now we have a climate change committee in Galway County Council and I am told it does not have staff.

I am a blunt speaker and I appreciate bluntness. I will work with anyone who is straight and blunt with me for the greater good. That is what we need here. If Galway County Council is struggling - we know it is one of the worst funded councils - how can it possibly tackle climate change or flooding on the roads if it does not have staff? We have the local issues and not enough staff and then we have the bigger issue of how to deal with climate change in the best way possible to bring most, if not all, people on board.

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