James Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House for the second time this week. I will raise with him an issue I raised on the Order of Business two days ago but first I will speak in a general way to the issue of flooding throughout the country and the fact that this will be an ever-increasing problem as a result of climate change, which we have to acknowledge. It does not fall to the Minister of State but we need to start thinking outside the box, particularly in terms of all the farming sheds throughout the country that could be covered in solar panels and photovoltaics.

The other issue I have raised here numerous times and will have to raise again on the Order of Business is the lack of guidelines for local authorities on solar farms. We should be helping and encouraging people into the renewable energy sector and not making life more difficult. I know of one local farmer who had his application refused on the basis that there were no guidelines.

In the short time available to me I want to address a local issue but I want to acknowledge the great work done by the Office of Public Works, OPW, and the great amounts of money that are being spent and are due to be spent such as the €140 million to be spent in Cork, the issues in Clonmel that we saw on television every year but which have been addressed, and the €10 million that was to be spent in Crossmolina, the town my father hailed from, among many others.

The issue I want to focus on is the coastal erosion in north Dublin, particularly in Portrane but also in Rush. We have an emergency in Portrane. We have a family living in a house that is literally 3 ft from the edge of the cliff. There is nothing like standing there to realise the precariousness of the situation. The corner of the building is literally 3 ft from the edge of the cliff and a 20 ft drop. Three generations of a family live in the house - Grainne, Amy and Fay - and their house will fall into the sea. I was down there in 2012 with the then Minister of State, Brian Hayes, when we had serious coastal erosion. I recall the struggle locals got involved in to put bags in place to protect the cliff. Those bags are now nearly 40 ft from the cliff edge. They were at the foot of the cliff at that time. We were told this was a once in a lifetime event but we have it again now, and as I said earlier, with climate change we will see more of it.

I know the Minister of State is working to try to address this issue with the local council and the local authority. I have appealed to Fingal County Council to take emergency action on it because it is a humanitarian issue and we do not want to see this family made homeless, but that is what will happen. In all, there are 13 houses in danger in a very immediate way, but as I said the other day, if the water breaches a small mound a few more yards in, it will flood and dislocate the Burrow from the rest of the peninsula, where 1,200 to 1,500 people live. That will cost considerable sums of money to correct so why can we not do something now to bring people together? I called for that 12 months ago. I know that is the Minister of State's intention and I wish him well with it, but he needs to knock heads together and get the interested parties who are involved in this to come up with a solution. The time for talking is long passed. I refer to Fingal County Council, the OPW, the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and planning officials.

While we are very interested in the environment and special areas of conservation, we cannot have a situation where lives and livelihoods are to be lost for the sake of a rigid interpretation of special areas of conservation. I was never one of the people who kept blaming Europe for all our ills, and I will not blame it for our ills in this case either. It is up to us to negotiate a realistic settlement and find a way of dealing with this problem. Lives and livelihoods are at stake as well as a person's right to their home. This house has been in that location since before 1963 so let there be no talk of other issues. This family are entitled to feel safe in their own home, and as we speak they are not safe.

This area will be seriously afflicted in the very short term if some action is not taken.This family is in immediate danger. There is no greater neglect than when one knows the danger and does nothing about it. Again I appeal to Fingal County Council. I recognise all the great work it has done during the weather crisis of recent days, all the good work it does and the plans it has for a coastal greenway which would be brilliant for people from north County Dublin, people coming in from the airport, and the people of Dublin generally because we are well served by trains all the way down the track. However, we need urgent action for this family. I appeal to the Minister of State to use his influence to encourage people to come together to find an immediate solution for this problem while we work on a more medium-term solution. A win-win situation is possible here because the works to be done can be done in such a way as to set the scene for the ultimate coastal greenway which will be put in. Time and tide wait for no man, woman or child and they will not wait for this family. It will be on our heads if we do not take action. That would not be a good reflection of all the excellent work which has been carried out to date by both the local authority and the Minister of State's Department, which I commend for the work it has done in keeping us safe.