Liam Quaide (Cork East, Social Democrats)

In certain parts of County Cork, and nationally, we are dealing with a set of challenges to do with flood risks that are enormous in their scale and complexity. These challenges will test us more as time goes on and as the climate crisis deepens. Prior to our day of devastation in east Cork on 18 October 2023, and since then, the response by the State to the flood risk has been detached, disjointed and inadequate. Settlements throughout east Cork that were struck on that day remain as exposed as ever to severe flooding. In some cases, we have no real clarity on a timeframe for works.

The OPW has subdivided its flood relief delivery programme into tranches. It says it is not possible to devise schemes concurrently due to "limited capacity" in the OPW, in local authorities and in the specialised consultancy market. It is alarming to see this piecemeal approach to a challenge that requires a comprehensive response. How much effort has been put into recruiting experts from abroad? East Cork remains at huge risk without a dramatic increase in ambition and a sense of urgency. I spoke to residents of Mogeely and Castlemartyr who are in a state of disbelief and despair after receiving correspondence from the OPW telling them they must wait for so-called tranche 2 projects to be pursued to protect their villages.

We are now fast approaching the two-year anniversary of October 2023. In east Cork, after long delays, we finally had a floodgate grant scheme approved last October. I very much welcomed that at the time. More than seven months later, many of the property owners have been assessed but have not yet had their gates installed. Many applicants who managed to keep the floodwaters out of their property interior on 18 October because they happened to be at home or, in some cases, they erected makeshift barriers - they were very resourceful under severe pressure - have been denied this grant but they remain at risk alongside neighbours who were deemed eligible. Cork County Council has said it will reconsider these applications at a later stage but it has clearly been so poorly resourced to carry out the work required that we are nowhere near that stage. We have a large-scale flood relief scheme for Midleton very slowly moving towards the planning phase and other smaller-scale projects for villages in east Cork in various stages of limbo. Many properties that should have had floodgates installed long ago are still without them. All the while, residents of Midleton, Killeagh, Castlemartyr, Ladysbridge, Rathcormac and Whitegate wait for the next major flood event. The indications from climate science are that it is a matter of when, not if. Other villages like Ballinacurra and Ballymacoda are also at risk.

The scale of this challenge calls for a wider agency to co-ordinate all the entities involved in managing flood risk and responses to flood events. These include the OPW, local authorities, the Departments of environment and agriculture, Irish Water, Inland Fisheries Ireland and Coillte. If we had one overall agency with the power to lead, we would see better co-ordination, speed and efficiency in all aspects of flood management. Land use changes can also substantially improve flood resilience in some parts of the country. These natural flood defences or nature-based solutions are not silver bullets but they are very effective for some settlements, with Mogeely and Rathcormac appearing to be cases in point. Land use changes would involve interventions like paying farmers to pursue measures such as strategic planting or allowing their fields to soak up excess water. Why is the OPW not pursuing these measures, which generally do not require planning permission, with a sense of urgency in tandem with the more standard relief works? We need to be on a sustained emergency footing, with cross-departmental and cross-agency work that is properly led, resourced and co-ordinated. When it comes to the huge challenges we face with flood risk, anything less puts us on a hiding to nothing.

I hope the Minister of State will visit Mogeely, Castlemartyr, Killeagh and Rathcormac in the coming weeks.

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