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

-----if there was a major rainfall event there is no way in which the city can discharge the water. There must be a hydrometric solution, which is complicated. In July we will have a preferred solution and it will take a year or a year and a half to get detailed designs in place, including consultation and dealing with the question of who owns the land and whether it must be acquired. Senator John Gilroy referred to the 12 km of quay walls that must be built.

When we get to the point of moving on a major capital investment, we need stakeholder involvement. There is no point in the local authority not having done the homework in getting people onside in saying to the business community that it is not rocket science and that we must build walls, embankments and pumping stations. It is horrible work and the city will be knocked out for two or three years while we do this work. The big gain with the capital infrastructure is that there will be certainty about flooding events, as we have seen in other parts of the country.

Stakeholder involvement is crucial. In order for us to get going on the Cork scheme, which will be the largest flood defence scheme in the history of the country and involving somewhere between €50 million and €100 million, at the tail end of next year all other timelines must be clear. The crucial engagement is with stakeholders to get them on board, to see what we are proposing, to comment on it and to support it. Otherwise, we will lose time and we will not be able to get construction going. I fully agree with colleagues about Cork, which is crucial.

Senator Barrett also referred to the turloughs in south Galway, which is the most complicated area of the country for engineers. Rainfall takes place and the water stays and there is no way we can get it out via turloughs into the sea. We have had to relocate over 20 families, through the Department of Social Protection, in that area of south Galway because, over the long term, it is cheaper to do so and flood the area then to provide a defence solution. That is part of the mix. It is very emotional for people to hear that they must be relocated because there is no solution. In some parts of the country, there is no solution or the solution costs such an astronomical sum as to be not justifiable in a cost benefit analysis.

Senator Denis Landy spoke about Limerick and whether this was a freak situation. It was the first question I asked about Limerick and I was told it was a one in 200 year event. What happened in the Shannon Estuary is that we knew there was a 7 in surge on top of the tide on Saturday morning.

However, we did not have a forecasting system, which would have helped to predict the impact of a 7 in surge in the estuary on homes and businesses in the city. We need to get to that point. An interesting aspect of the Cork engineering solution is that once we get to that point, we can predict with a much greater degree of accuracy the impact of such events on housing and on commercial areas of the city. Senator Landy rightly asked if it was a freak incident, but I cannot answer that question.

Central government will fund 90% of the cost of the scheme and the local authorities will fund the remaining 10%. If problems arise this year in this context, we will look at it again. I have seen cases in which we have given funds to local authorities but they have not been drawn down.