Déirdre de Búrca (Green Party)

I welcome this opportunity to make a statement on the recent flooding. I feel very passionately about flooding because in my eight years as a member of Wicklow County Council some of the most difficult planning situations I had to deal with or be involved with were cases in which flood plains were being zoned. Public representatives have probably only begun to wake up to the enormous responsibility they have when zoning land to ensure they are not planning development in areas which will cause major flood risk problems in the future. Unfortunately, this is something we have not been sufficiently aware of until now.

I listened with interest to the debate today. Senators have spoken movingly about the distress of constituents throughout the country. It is right and proper that we use our positions to do that. However, there is something fundamentally unsatisfactory about the fact that at national level, all the political parties are saying the right things about flooding - how dreadful it is, asking how it happened and saying more must done through the provision of emergency funding and so forth - but at local level on the part of all the political parties there is very irresponsible zoning of flood risk areas and flood plains. Even as we speak decisions are probably being made in which people are convincing themselves that it will not make a difference or that they can zone an area if they put in certain measures as well.

It must be recognised that we are in a new era in terms of climate change. We will continue to experience the type of high and extreme levels of precipitation we have seen over recent years. Our drainage systems will be under extraordinary pressure and the type of flooding we are experiencing at present will happen again. Hopefully, we will be able to mitigate and reduce the drastic impact of that flooding, but it will happen more regularly. What we once considered to be once in 100 years storms will become once in 50 years, once in 20 years or once in ten years storms. We must do everything we can, particularly in the way we plan our communities in future, to ensure we do not worsen the situation or create an environment where people are left in the conditions we have seen through the excellent coverage by the national broadcaster. Through that coverage one is almost with the people in their kitchens, walking around with them knee high in flood waters and empathising fully with them.

One of the worst things that can happen to anybody is to have their home and belongings subject to flooding. It has an effect not just at the time of the flooding but in the weeks and months afterwards when the clean-up is taking place and one must go through the awful business of trying to find out if the insurance company is prepared to provide funding for the work required to restore the property and replace the belongings that have been damaged. We have heard many stories of insurance companies that are refusing to provide insurance to homeowners who have claimed once as a result of flooding of their property.

As people who are involved in making critical planning decisions, we cannot continue to allow this to happen. At this time when we are discussing the issue of zoning, all political parties should pledge to ensure that what they say at national level will be implemented and complied with by their councillors at local level. If they do not, they will be guilty of extreme hypocrisy. There is little good when the damage is done asking the Government to provide funds to mitigate or try to remedy some of that damage because at that stage the expense is huge. People are already trying to calculate the economic damage that has been done throughout the country as a result of flooding. Every political party must resolve that the message will go to local councillors that the flood guidelines the Minister, Deputy Gormley, is due to introduce in the near future must be adhered to.

This country must also examine the issue of the accountability we will seek if people continue to zone and make planning decisions in irresponsible ways. Recently we have seen in the banking sector how people behaved in a very reckless way and appear to date to have suffered few consequences for that behaviour, even though the livelihoods of many people have been destroyed. We must examine the planning process and if people are ignoring recommendations of planners and flood management guidelines, proceeding to zone flood plains and grant planning permission in areas that are susceptible to flooding or are recognised as flood plains, there should be some serious penalty and the people who are making those critical decisions should be held responsible. We must make this a serious issue and make the consequences clear so we can persuade councillors in future to be mindful of this when making planning decisions.

With regard to what can be done, I agree with Senator Norris's remarks about water management. There must be better water management systems. The water framework directive is a very good policy framework for improving our water management systems. The policy is based on national river basins and catchment areas. We must ensure local authorities are working together well so they do not view this matter in terms of artificial local authority areas, but as the natural catchment areas and basins of our rivers. We need to identify flood risk and flood prone areas and flood plains in our county and local area development plans. We need to ensure full implementation of the national guidelines that will be introduced soon by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley.

We must ask local authorities to audit their drainage systems and set out clear plans over the next year or two to improve them. The Government must ensure flood protection measures in high-risk areas are implemented and that funding is providing. We will not have enough funding to implement them everywhere, but we are all aware of certain high-risk areas, including Clonmel where flood protection measures are not completed but are in progress, Bray and other areas that are regularly subjected to serious flooding.

We need to consider the issue of reservoirs and hydroelectric power stations to ensure the types of problem experienced in the past week or so do not recur. We must increase their capacities to take account of the fact that flooding will be a more regular occurrence.