Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome my namesake, the Minister of State, Deputy Patrick O'Donovan. I thank him for kindly visiting my home town of Bantry some time ago to see first-hand the damage done by flooding. I also acknowledge the visit at around the same time of the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, whose home town it is, given his father was born and reared there, before he emigrated to Cork, if I can use the phrase. His visit also gave some hope.

The problem in Bantry, as the Minister of State is probably aware, is that we have a double issue. When there is severe flooding after a yellow status or orange status weather alarm, and this combines with high tides, which we call spring tides, it creates a perfect storm and is a very serious issue. Bantry is a relatively low-lying coastal town and, in the long term, will be exposed to future tidal increases and extreme storm weather.

I opened a little business there in 1981 and I have noticed, decade by decade, that the rainfall seems to have increased. In the first decade of my business, I think we had severe flooding once but in this past winter, from October to today, there has been flooding on five separate occasions, two of them quite serious. It is very stressful. It causes anxiety to people with businesses, which are closed because of Covid, to come in and find clothes and shoes floating around in 18 inches of water. It has done a lot of damage.

On the question of damage, if people can get insurance, given the repetitiveness of the flooding, insurance companies are increasing their premiums. The day is not far away when they will say, “Hold on, you have a perennial situation in Bantry and we will not cover you again.”

Because the town built new developments over the years, water is now running off hard surfaces and into the streams and culverts too quickly. The capacity of the culverts is no longer sufficient. Although I normally do not do so, I want to pay tribute to the British empire in its heyday and the monarchy that, in about 1860, built these systems in Bantry and other towns. In fairness, they have lasted up to this time and the structural culverts still stand and are in good use. However, when they were designed and the engineers dealt with this in about 1860, they never envisaged the culverts would have to take that volume of water.

The big issue is to find solutions, in particular to build and increase capacity and identify measures and techniques to slow down the quick release of excessive rainwater into the culvert infrastructure. I suggest that we set up a collaboration and communication between all the stakeholders, not necessarily just businesses, although we have a very active Bantry Business Association, which issues flood warnings frequently when there is a problem, which is very helpful, but also the owners of private houses and others. It is essential that the stakeholders are communicated with. We need a structural update on the culvert system and a feasibility study of different solutions should be embarked on quickly. We must identify critical problem areas and provide funding for immediate remedial work to improve the situation, although the culvert issue can be dealt with without further reports. We need to design a long-term plan.

I was on the council for many years, I was elected to the Dáil in 2002 and I was on the old Bantry Harbour Board, which was eventually subsumed into and taken over by the Cork Port Authority.That was a retrograde step. In 2010 or thereabouts, a pivotal part of a new plan for Bantry involved developing a barrage or sluice gate for high tides. When spring tide coincided with flooding, this would keep out the tidal water out and the floodwater would gather in an area of six or seven acres created in the inner harbour. I look forward to the Minister of State's response and thank him for visiting the town some time ago.