John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)

I want to congratulate the Minister of State on his appointment and to wish him well in his role. I have had dealings with him in the past when I served as Chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach. He presented his Estimates and every time he came in I reminded him of Carlow, Kilkenny and the schemes that were waiting to be planned and completed and encouraged him to spend the money that was there as quickly as possible. I also encouraged him to engage with county councils to ensure that there was efficiency in the system that would make it work because these schemes are vital to local communities. The time is now to look at the planning process for all of these schemes. In a lot of cases, the planning process holds up the real delivery of the results that are being asked for by the people we represent, the communities that have had serious difficulties with floods down through the years.

The Minister of State is very welcome to come to Carlow and Kilkenny. I extended that invitation to him previously when he was before the finance committee. I would like to see him looking at the various areas that are affected so that he gets a sense of the extent of the work that is needed to relieve some of the issues that I will highlight now. Freshford is a small village on the outskirts of the city. It is a village that I spent a lot of time in being looked after and reared by relations. It is sad to see a beautiful village like that being flooded on a regular basis, houses being destroyed and people being disrupted. I have seen new houses that were constructed there that were damaged by flooding. I know that the relief scheme is in tranche two but I would like to see that delivered as soon as possible. Anyone who has experienced a flood knows that it is extremely difficult to get one's house back into order and there is always an issue with insurance. Likewise, in relation to the village of Inistioge, I have seen the flood waters there rise to the level of the crossbars of goalposts. There has been really serious flooding, with lots of properties on the square being absolutely destroyed on a regular basis. Thomastown and Piltown experience flooding also. The plans need to be fast tracked for the areas that are deeply affected by flooding. History will tell us about Graiguenamanagh and Tinnahinch which have been flooded consistently. Efforts were made by the county council and the Department to get a scheme to the point of construction, with money being allocated as far back as 2018 but we still have no sign of the relief scheme being put in place.

I am sure the Minister of State will look at the systems that are there to deliver these schemes. Perhaps he will use his good offices to ensure that when county councils put forward proposals for these schemes they ensure there is no delay in the context of accepting the money from Government and implementing the schemes as quickly as they possibly can. Kilkenny is no stranger to flood relief schemes. One of the biggest schemes in the country was put in place right through the city of Kilkenny. It is often said that what we did was provide a scheme at a cost of millions of euro but the floodwaters now hit the villages downstream a hell of a lot quicker and therefore cause difficulties for them. I do not believe that is the case because there are various pooling areas along the route of the River Nore but at the same time, it does make some sense and needs to be examined. Likewise, we need to look at the schemes that have been completed, the smaller flood relief schemes, to see what we can learn about delivery and how best we might be able to improve the system and the funding mechanism as we go along. Some of those schemes, although completed, are now causing further difficulty because, as with the River Nore, there are now smaller streams, and lands that are being drained into those streams, that come into the flood relief section that has been delivered and then move quickly to flood the next area downstream.

I have seen the OPW and council contractors ensure that nature is protected and that it is done in a very sensible way. Indeed, Alan O'Sullivan in Kilkenny is an expert in this area and reconstructed the Lacken weir in Kilkenny. He is a man who is into biodiversity and protecting whatever wildlife there might be along a stream or river and has given fantastic help in terms of planning. Indeed, he planned an outdoor pool on the River Nore in Thomastown. There are experts out there but we need to tap into them and learn from the mistakes of the past. I would encourage the Minister of State to drive the councils to get the job done, get plans into the system and get the money drawn down.

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