Michelle Mulherin (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is welcome to the House. We have been debating the issue of flood defences and protection more and more in recent times in both Houses and across local government and our councils because of the increasingly erratic weather we are witnessing. The weather on Monday is evidence, in the face of cynics who do not want to subscribe to the existence of global warming, that there are temperature changes and that climate change is having a devastating impact particularly on people in the south of Ireland. I would also like to be associated with the condolences expressed to the families of the people who lost their lives during Storm Ophelia.

In other parts of the world, we saw the massive hurricanes in the Caribbean and even though they are used to hurricanes, all the weather we are hearing of now and which is reported is unprecedented. The storms are wilder and the floods are higher. It is frightening, and the corner of the world in which we live is not earmarked to be the most affected, which means there are people who are far more affected than us. That is very sobering. If anything is a clarion call for people to unite to try to combat the causes of climate change, it must be this because it is visiting our doorstep. We see people coming together in terms of community and volunteers as well as the emergency services, which people have rightly praised over the past day or two in this Chamber. However, we must come together to fight climate change. We can do it. We have already seen that by banning aerosols the ozone layer has been restored over the past, I think, 35 years. We can make a change and a difference, but we must act collectively. If mankind is doing damage, mankind can take steps to repair that damage. There is also an economic case for this. There are lives and businesses to be considered, but climate change will have a severe impact economically if we do not stop the rising tides and floods.

I have no doubt but that, based on most recently the emergency services' response and the approach of the whole of Government and all its agencies, the issues of protecting people in storms, extreme weather and flooding are priorities for the Government. This is reflected in the programmes available. We have the capital flood risk management measures, whereby in September 2015 a pot of €430 million was made available to be spent between 2016 and 2021 on particular flood defences which would seek to protect towns and communities in the event of extreme high water. That is what we try to aim for, and we have seen some successes in parts of the country where the OPW has undertaken this work. I give credit to the OPW, the consultants and the communities that have played their part in making sure these flood defences are built. We also had the CFRAM programme, whereby 300 areas around the country have been assessed as to where they are deemed to be at risk of flooding. This is with a view to deciding what the appropriate options are to mitigate flooding and to try to reduce the risk of flooding. Some of those areas are at different stages. I have alluded to the €430 million being spent. That announcement predated the whole effect of CFRAM, and a number of projects were earmarked and identified at the same time as that funding was announced. That is taxpayers' money. The OPW is charged with making sure those flood defences are delivered as soon as possible and practicable and it engages consultants in that regard. I believe the Minister of State's job and role is to make sure that is done on time and as soon as possible, and I am sure he will not disagree.

A case with which the Minister of State will be very familiar is Crossmolina, which has experienced flooding over the years but particularly badly in November and December 2015. In November, there was a small flood, and then there was a deluge in December. It was absolutely horrific to see the devastation it caused in the middle of the town - not in an area where a new housing estate was built on a flood plain, but in one of the oldest parts of town. It was the same in Ballina, where I live. Old parts of town that were flooded had never really witnessed the like of it before. Work in Crossmolina had been in train in terms of consultants being appointed prior to 2014 to come up with a flood defence solution. Very late in the day, in 2014, the consultants decided that the option they were pursuing, which was to build flood walls within the town, could not proceed because in doing so extra pressure would have been put on the one bridge that goes across the River Deel. The whole bridge would have had to be replaced, which would have incurred significant additional cost. To me, it was pretty late in the day to make such decisions, but cognisance nonetheless had to be taken of the engineering and scientific findings, so it was back to the drawing board. However, from 2014 to date, we still have not had the second option. The option that has been examined is a channel upstream from the river which would take the excess floodwater and channel it away from the town so it does not come near the town in the first place. However, to date, I do not believe any option has been put formally to the Minister of State.

At this juncture, what is imperative, and what I am asking the Minister of State to do, aside from the generality of what I have to say, is to proceed to a public consultation on the preferred option as soon as possible and to get on with the next step towards progressing the building flood defences, whatever they will consist of. The money is there and the public is at a loss to understand the situation. Every time there is a yellow warning for rain - a yellow warning can result in this, and it does not have to be a red alert warning such as at the weekend - people are in fear. I acknowledge the pilot project announced by the Minister of State's predecessor, the Minister, Deputy Simon Harris, which saw the erection of floodgates. I think 83 premises have been fitted with floodgates. We see the local authority fitting non-return valves in premises in order that they do not have to deal with stuff coming back up through the sewage system and so on, and we see some minor flood defences in the form of walls built under the minor works scheme. However, the money is there to build a major flood defence. I acknowledge we must allow nature to take its course to an extent, but a lot of the scientific and other research has been done and we still do not have the preferred option on the table, namely, the public consultation. This is imperative.

The issue is not just getting emergency services in, getting the community to volunteer with the clean-up and getting the Government to give people money to compensate them in some way or to help them fix their houses and businesses. There is now a town in Crossmolina that is stagnant. One cannot sell a property in the area or get insurance for the property.If one had a business, why would one invest in it given that one is completely in limbo? It is somewhat depressing. The people there are mighty and have been very practical as a community in coming together.

I refer finally to CFRAM. In Ballina, which I mentioned, we have progressed in the process to the point of having a CFRAM plan with the preferred option of building a flood defence wall. However, an older part of the town was flooded again. Can we have some action and some investment for this? People live in constant fear that another big surge will come and destroy their homes which, at this point, no longer have insurance. I can well understand their concerns. This falls on the Minister of State's shoulders and I hope he can give us some answers. I am, of course, mindful of all of the good work that has happened over the last couple of days and the plans that are there. We need not just plans but action. In the cases I have described, that action is clearly overdue.