Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

We spent most of our time talking about the climate action plan, the ways to reduce emissions and prevent the worst effects of climate change from happening, and the adaptation plans are what is done when it does happen, and when flooding occurs, how we build the infrastructure to prevent it from happening.

There are many questions in this House on flooding. They are answered by the Minister of State with responsibility for the OPW. It is the OPW which has responsibility for making one of these sectoral adaptation plans and it is its job to make sure it is incorporating all the science and research to make sure it can prevent floods from happening in blackspots. From listening to the replies from the OPW, there seems to be a very long list of places in the country that are affected by flooding. It seems the once in a hundred year events that are marked on the flood risk maps happen much more frequently than that. We can look back at the experience in Midleton and see how important it is that we find a way to prevent these things from happening.

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