Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am almost losing the will to live at this point. There are 940 properties in the eight areas I mentioned. The Minister of State asked me if I have any more questions. What is the delay? The consultants were appointed back in 2020. We are into our third year. They were building on the work done by the OPW which began in 2012. I realise that it is a bigger job than originally imagined or planned for, that it is more complex and all of that. We are into our third year after the consultants were appointed and the timelines are shifting all of the time. I am asking how the Minister of State can stand over this. How can he stand over this happening in Galway city, with the dangers that flooding presents? I live in the Claddagh and have seen it flooded. My house was safe, luckily, but many people were not so lucky. That has happened numerous times.

I am also concerned at the sentence that refers to a one-in-100-years event. We are out of all of that kind of talk now in relation to the catastrophic effects of climate change.

Finally, last year or the year before artists erected visual display, with lights, of where the water would go in the Claddagh. Please let me have a more urgent response.

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