Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. We have discussed flooding on many occasions over recent times. I am delighted to participate in this debate. I thank Senator Garvey and her colleagues for tabling the motion.

We must acknowledge that for far too long the grief that flooding has caused for communities, families and individuals has not been adequately dealt with, but in recent years that situation has changed. The previous Government, which was a confidence and supply Government, gave a commitment to spend €1 billion on alleviating flooding difficulties over the next number of years. That is very welcome. There are two major flood schemes - the OPW's flood relief capital works programme and the minor works scheme that is carried out by county councils. The latter is a very good scheme because it involves the local community and local knowledge.

As Senators Boyhan and Garvey have spoken very strongly about, we must all realise we will have to look at new ideas, and the more we can use nature to do this, all the better. We must also realise that in dealing with this issue, we cannot eliminate drainage. That is the reality. One of the reasons is that the pattern of rainfall has changed. The amount of rainfall over two days 30 or 40 years ago can now fall in a few hours, which creates immediate problems. Looking at the breakdown of the way rain falls in this country, in the east there is in excess of 750 mm of rain per annum, in the west between 1,000 and 1,400 mm of rain or more falls per annum, and in mountainous areas that figure is 2,000 mm. Clearly, the midlands and west have a bigger problem with this than other parts of the country due to the pattern of rainfall.

Quite a number of projects have been considered and completed, on which I thank the present Minister and the OPW for their engagement. I also thank two former Ministers of State, Deputy Canney and Mr. Kevin Boxer Moran. The three individuals have done significant work in meeting communities and working with groups to ensure the proper systems were put in place to avoid people being flooded. One fault I would have with some of the schemes is that water may be pushed out to flood somewhere else. That is certainly a big pinch point in that there is no point in protecting a town if you are going to push the water out five or six miles to flood a couple of hundred acres of land. Too many farmers, small businesses and communities in this country have suffered for too long. How many times was the drainage of the Shannon discussed at political meetings at the end of a pub over the past 50 years? I would say it was drained a thousand times at those meetings but it has not happened, although it is beginning to happen in a certain way now.

We must consider the River Shannon. Twenty State agencies have a stake in operating the water levels on the River Shannon, which is unbelievable. Apart from that, there are also quite a number of voluntary organisations like the farming organisations. It is high time, and I introduced a Bill to the House today in this regard, and I thank every side of the House for assisting me in that, that we got to a point, and I am not talking about eight to ten years but in the next year or two, where we move to a single agency to look after the River Shannon. How long have we heard about the build-up of silt on the River Shannon? Two or three years ago there was an arrangement for Bord na Móna to remove the silt, but as far as I am aware it never happened, so silt will have built up, which reduces the capacity of the river and the flood is going to expand into adjoining land. Therefore, the removal of silt must be a priority. I understand that with less happening on our bogs now, that will not be as big an issue.

We can go back over the years and look at what the Land Commission and the drainage board did. They did a very significant job in this country of ensuring the majority of areas did not flood, but the reality is there is climate change.Nobody can deny that. I reiterate strongly what Senator Boyhan said. The farming community members who engage with me on this in the Roscommon-Galway region are very anxious to play their part. In a fair-minded way, they understand that changes have to be made, and I have no doubt but that they want to become part of the solution. I also believe in the sincerity of Senator Garvey; the Minister of State, Senator Hackett; Senator O'Reilly; and others here. They want to come up with new ideas. I hope that with my legislation and this motion, taking this matter very seriously, we can move forward in a progressive way, taking everything into account but ensuring we have far better management of flood events. There is no doubt about it: we will have to deal with such events because climate change is out there.