Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank my good friend and colleague, Senator Coghlan, for raising this important issue. As he has highlighted, we had a very difficult week or two, with storms ravaging parts of the western counties, especially Galway, Kerry, Clare, Limerick, Cork and Mayo. I know there is a Senator from Galway here and Waterford was also affected.

The Senator is aware that the Cabinet considered the matter yesterday and the initial assessment from the affected counties is that €65 million will be needed to repair some of the damage, of which €35 million relates to a variety of issues around coastal works. My Department has written to all the city and county managers advising them of the minor works schemes that we run in our Department, with funding of up to €500,000 provided for flood defence schemes of a minor nature. Anything beyond that is clearly on a larger scale. We have written to managers and changed some criteria to make it easier to make applications. I publicly gave a commitment - which I repeat tonight in the House - that when we see those applications come in from local authorities we will prioritise the counties that have been worst affected and see if we can quickly get money to these areas.

The first priority for us is to repair damaged flood schemes, as many parts of the western counties had flood schemes in place that have been damaged. The priority has to be to repair the damaged schemes as quickly as possible. It is still relatively early in the winter and there are difficult weather days before us. The €45 million allocation is for the whole country and we must wait to see the full scale of applications that will come to us. As I stated last week, it is inevitable that more funding will have to be found to deal with repairs.

The Senator raised the specific case of Rossbeigh. Consideration must be given to the fact that coastal erosion is a natural and ongoing process. Although it may have an adverse impact on coastal communities and infrastructure, it can also have beneficial effects, such as providing natural nourishment and a supply of sediment to adjacent beaches. Due to the considerable extent and nature of the Irish coastline affected by erosion and the fact that it is an ongoing natural process, it is clearly not feasible from an economic or practical viewpoint for the State to protect all of this coastline. Any approach toward addressing problems of coastal erosion must be informed by an assessment of the risks involved. The Government recognises this and is taking active measures to assess and monitor the risks of coastal erosion.

The Irish coastal protection strategy study, which is a major examination of this matter, is effectively complete, and this will provide invaluable and essential information. That strategy is providing an entire mapping system for the national coastline, which is a very important element in the proper management of the coastline. The Office of Public Works is currently undertaking a series of catchment flood risk assessment and management, CFRAM, studies, which also feed into the issue of coastal communities. The CFRAM assessments are supported by the collection of data under the programme following flood events to identify areas and numbers of properties flooded, flood depths and mechanisms, etc.

There is a tendency sometimes to assume that problems such as coastal erosion require fixing, usually through engineered solutions. These interventions are usually very costly in terms of both initial capital and ongoing maintenance costs. However, it is important to stand back and look at the problem in the round. For example, the European Commission study entitled Living with Coastal Erosion in Europe, completed in 2004, highlighted some important findings, including the fact that some previous interventions, while solving erosion problems locally, exacerbated coastal erosion at other locations. This study also highlighted the concept of "coastal squeeze" which occurs in low-lying and intertidal areas which would otherwise naturally adjust to changes in sea level, storms and tides but cannot do so due to the construction of sea walls. The outcome can often be a gradual loss of amenity beach and habitat.

To conclude, I assure the Senator that I am fully aware of the coastal erosion issues at Rossbeigh. I was there some years ago with a colleague of the Senator.