Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Fine Gael)
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A coastal walkway will help to prevent flooding in Dundalk and Blackrock while brining immense benefits to tourism and all facets of recreation and addressing the obesity epidemic. As a member of the Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children and rapporteur on the issue of obesity, I feel obliged to remind the House that, while we are making appreciable inroads in the task of stabilising some health problems such as our drink culture and smoking, one of our principal health problems - obesity - is growing at an alarming rate.

As a member of the Committee on Health and Children, I am more exposed on a daily basis to the health and financial time-bomb that the growing level of obesity in our population, particularly the youth population, represents. I urge all Deputies to become more aware at their local levels of this ticking bomb and to be more proactive in trying to initiate, in conjunction with their local authority members and managements, local policies, strategies and projects to address this burgeoning problem.

By way of example, in my town of Dundalk I have taken an initiative to catalyse our local council into action so as to provide an extension of our local Slí na Sláinte network. A group of committed local environmental activists recently brought to my attention the fact that our only existing riverside walk, which is just under 2 km in length, could easily be extended to link with an existing heavily overgrown earthen embankment that runs along the high water mark of Dundalk Bay for some 4 km from Dundalk to Blackrock. Although this earthen embankment was built almost three centuries ago, it has lasted - almost completely unmaintained - right up to the present. However, it is suffering the ravages of time and tide and, because it provides protection from tidal flooding to more than 3,500 homes and business premises, we must act urgently and decisively to enhance its flood risk mitigation capacity.

Obviously, my primary interest in connecting our Navy Bank walk to our Dundalk-Blackrock embankment is the Slí na Sláinte potential of the 6 km walkway-cycleway that would be created by joining the embankments and servicing and upgrading them. However, the additional flood risk mitigation for 3,500 homes and business premises that would be secured by the implementation of this strategy is even more important.

The initiative I have taken in co-operation with community volunteers, acting pursuant to the provisions of sections 66 and 67 of the Local Government Act 2001 and in joint venture with Dundalk Town Council and Louth County Council, seeks to provide protection for the Dundalk southern inter-tidal marshland and mud flat area of the EU-designated Dundalk Bay special protection area, SPA, Natura 2000 site, which is an internationally significant feeding and roosting habitat for indigenous and migratory water fowl and other birds. An equally important objective of my initiative is to enhance significantly the flood risk mitigation capacity of the existing Lord Limerick earthen embankment.

The third element of the proposal is to add the long aspired to Dundalk-Blackrock coastal walkway-cycleway Slí na Sláinte to the recreational tourism amenity public infrastructure offering of the north east by heightening, strengthening and extending the embankment and equipping it with appropriately sited, heavily camouflaged ornithological observation posts. It is also envisaged that a moat barrier will be constructed to prevent the increasing and undesirable intrusion by dogs, anti-social elements, hunters and so forth onto the salt marshes and mud flats, thereby allaying the concerns that have been identified and enumerated in various expert studies and reports over the past 20 years. This will be done through the implementation of the strategy that has been developed and proposed by the Louth Environmental Group.

Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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On behalf of my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, I thank Deputy Fitzpatrick for raising this matter and I welcome the opportunity to discuss it in the House. The development of coastal amenities such as walkways does not fall within the remit of the Office of Public Works, OPW, but is a matter for the local authority in the first instance and, in so far as central government responsibility is concerned, would probably be more appropriate to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport.

I am advised that there is an existing walkway-cycleway from Dundalk to Soldier's Point, but that it has become overgrown and derelict. I also understand a local environmental group has been working on rehabilitating and reinstating the walkway and that it has done excellent work to date. The proposed development of the walkway along this stretch of coast near Dundalk was first examined ten years ago. In order to provide an additional and enhanced amenity, a proposed extension of the walkway-cycleway to the start point of Blackrock was examined by Louth County Council in 2003. This would have involved adapting existing embankments that were created approximately 100 years ago to protect farmland. A preliminary report was produced and discussions took place between the council and the relevant environmental authority on the subject of how the walkway-cycleway could be built in the area, which includes a special area of conservation, SAC, but work was put on hold by the council to await the outcome of the Irish coastal protection strategy study and the subsequent catchment flood risk assessment and management, CFRAM, study, which is examining the main causes of flood risk in the general area.

Dundalk and Blackrock are areas for further assessment under the CFRAM study, that is, areas identified as having significant flood risk and that are being examined in more detail. The OPW has appointed engineering consultants RPS to undertake this study and it is well under way. Under the programme, work on drawing up draft flood maps will be finalised in 2014 and flood risk management plans will be developed by the end of 2015.

The flood management plan for the Dundalk and Blackrock area will include a list of prioritised measures to address the flood risk in those areas. It may well be that strengthening of the existing embankments on which the existing walkway is situated may form part of the solution. However, it is far too early to know this and we must wait to see what the CFRAM study recommends. In any event, the recommended measures in the study will concern themselves only with addressing flood risk. They will not address other ancillary issues such as the placement of walkways on embankments for amenity or recreational purposes. As I said earlier, this is not part of the OPW's responsibilities. If Louth County Council wishes to address this possibility, it will be a matter for the council to pursue it with the relevant agencies.

It is important to point out that a key element of the CFRAM programme is public consultation. Public information days on the draft flood maps will take place during 2014. These events will be advertised in local press and regular updates will be available on the website www.cfram.ie. There will be plenty of opportunities, therefore, for the public and particular interest groups to make comments and suggestions or to raise concerns about flooding in the area over the next number of months.

Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for his observations and advice. I will outline some of the benefits to our community which will accrue from the implementation of this proposal. They are multiple and include the following: reducing or eliminating the imminent tidal flood risk danger to several thousand residential and business premises in Dundalk town and its hinterland, particularly those with floor-levels at or below 4 m ODM - 4 metres Ordinance Datum Malin Head; reducing or eliminating the danger to this internationally significant feeding and roosting habitat of migratory and native birds and fowl, which is the beneficiary of the protection which is afforded by the EU designation of the Marsh South section of Dundalk Bay as a Natura 2000 special protection area, from trespass onto the inter-tidal salt marsh by persons who engage in anti-social behaviour, hunters, dogs and so forth; contributing significantly to the implementation of the national anti-obesity strategy; furthering the Slí na Sláinte campaign by the Irish Heart Foundation; endorsing the necessity to continue to strive to secure the alternative transportation objectives which have been the policy of every Government for over 20 years by continuing to extend our growing network of cycle ways and walk ways; recognising the desirability of providing the people of Dundalk and the wider north-east region with access as of right by ownership, instead of by way of tolerated trespass on private property, to the wonderful ambience of this 4 km section of the Dundalk Bay coastline; catalysing the provision of similar public and tourism recreational and flood risk mitigation infrastructure on the northern Castletown River bank, the Flurry Estuary banks, the Dundalk Bay SPA's northern shores and the Dundalk-Greenore railway rail track bed; and addressing the need to continue to enhance and develop our tourism product, particularly for the cycling and walking fraternity which is widely and validly acknowledged as a long-staying, high-spending segment of our tourist profile.

Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Much work has been done and much progress has been made in tackling flooding problems throughout the country, with almost €370 million invested from 1995. The OPW has approved total funding of €335,558 to Louth County Council under its minor flood mitigation works and coastal protection scheme since 2009. Three projects have been completed in the Dundalk and Blackrock areas at a total cost of €157,320.

For longer-term solutions we must wait for the recommendations that emanate from the CFRAM study and plan. That will be extremely good for the region. I urge Deputy Fitzpatrick to keep in contact with the council. This could be a wonderful project for that area and I would envisage support for it from everybody. It would be good for the area. As the Deputy said, tourism and health could benefit from a project such as this. However, everything in the flood programme must be examined.