Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Seven years after the towns of Mountmellick and Portarlington flooded, work on the relevant flood relief schemes has not started. The schemes for both towns are stuck at stage 1, preliminary design. More than 70 houses were damaged in the Mountmellick area when the flooding occurred. The Committee of Public Accounts had the OPW before it in the past two weeks. It confirmed that the timeline for a project is 11 years, including four years for preliminary design. That is crazy stuff. The process then moves on to public consultation and the exhibition of what is intended. That is another two years. Why are two years needed for public consultation? Detailed design takes 12 months. That is seven years just to get to the finished, detailed design. There are then 36 months for construction, which is understandable. There are 12 months for handover. That is 11 years, assuming everything goes right. The work in Portarlington and Mountmellick has not even started. This cannot wait. Other towns throughout the country cannot wait. I ask the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, not just to raise this with the relevant Minister but to also ensure that somebody comes back to me with a response about what is going to be done to cut this nonsense out and shorten the timeframe for flood relief schemes. These schemes take 11 years, and that can increase to 15 years if something goes wrong.

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