Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. Most of us who have been in politics for some time have experience of the trauma and impact of a flooding event on homeowners, whether it be on a relatively small scale, when, for example, a small number of houses are affected, or a large-scale flooding event. The severe trauma people go through when their homes or businesses are flooded has a huge impact, not just for the day, night or period of time when the flooding happens but for a long period after that, as they wait for the inevitable response they hope will prevent a future event.

I spoke some weeks ago during a Commencement debate about Galway city's flood defences. As things stand, it will be a decade before those works are completed. It is not important who is around to cut the tape; the issue it is that it will be ten years before the work is fully done. The question I asked during that debate, which I put now to the Minister of State, is whether, realistically, there is anything that can be done to speed up a process like that. This is the difficulty we have.

A little more than a year ago, the Minister of State was good enough to come out to Clifden in Connemara the day after the flooding event that took place in the town. It was a huge event involving an unprecedented amount of rainfall concentrated in a short period of time. A number of areas in Clifden were impacted, including Clifden Glen, which the Minister of State visited first, the Low Road, where he met some homeowners, and Riverside, where a number of homes were flooded. He also met with engineers to discuss the storm water issue on the Low Road. Fortunately, work has been done by the county council to divert storm water before it reaches the small number of houses that are affected. We hope that will lessen the impact on those homes, if not prevent further flooding. However, the concerns and worries of families there, as well as those in Clifden Glen and Riverside, will continue for some time. I understand consultants will be appointed imminently to draw up a design for a low-cost scheme for the town and carry out a full catchment assessment and all the preparatory work that is necessary. Consideration should be given to upstream solutions as part of that.

I was contacted by a person in Clifden at the time of the flooding about cleaning up some of the debris and vegetation that were left in the middle of the town. The area in question is before you hit the eye of the bridge over the Owenglin river. This section is not in the control of the county council, the Office of Public Works or Inland Fisheries Ireland. It is a riparian river, as I understand it, and therefore control rests with adjacent landowners. Obviously, any works that take place would have to be done in consultation with Inland Fisheries Ireland and whoever else might have to be involved. It is a large and difficult undertaking. These are some of the problems we face in Clifden. I hope that with processes running smoothly, we can come up with a solution.

The motion refers to the issue of how doing something in one location may impact on other areas. In fact, you cannot do something within a town that might have an impact further downstream within the same town. You can sort out one problem by building a barrier, for instance, but that will force water more quickly into another part of the town. I appreciate these are some of the complexities the OPW and consultants will face in designing schemes.

The motion mentions a national land use review, which would include farmland, forests and peatland, with a view to ensuring optimum land use options inform all relevant Government decisions. I welcome such a review provided it does not result in delays. If that work has to be done and could take a number of years, with the consequence that everything else must be put on hold, that is a concern. I am sure such a delay is not what is intended by the authors of the motion, but it is a concern.

I fully support the need to protect forests along rivers and lakes with a view to protecting water quality and assist in managing flood risks. As the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, knows, there are often solutions for riparian zones that should be done anyway from the point of view of carbon sequestration, amenity and habitat protection. If such efforts can assist with water retention, thereby slowing the flow of water, they certainly would be a welcome initiative.

I know the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, is caught, so to speak, by the demands of public procurement, the public spending code, planning procedures and processes, and all the rest of it. None of that is easy or quick and, as I understand it, none of it can be speeded up to a degree that would make a huge difference. I ask that he provide some clarity in regard to the statutory processes and the stages in the public spending code and planning system. Will he indicate whether anything can, in fact, be done to enable those processes to be speeded up to allow for completion of some of these schemes?