PJ Murphy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish the Minister of State a happy birthday. Although stated by my colleague Senator Rabbitte, I am indeed here to speak about the south Galway and Gort lowlands flood relief scheme and the painstakingly slow pace of progress on this project since the engineering consultants were first appointed in December 2017. That is over eight years ago. This project is critically important. The large-scale flood relief scheme still has not reached the planning submission stage. Since the inception stage, more than €4 million has been spent on the preparation of the scheme in the context of, for example, project and climate modelling by Trinity College Dublin, engineering works, work by engineering and environmental consultants and ground investigation work. Eight years and €4 million in taxpayers' money later, we the people of south Galway have still seen no physical progress on the scheme. If there is a bad flood this winter - we have had a number of such floods over the past 30 years - family homes and businesses, thousands of acres of agricultural land, farmyards and slatted tanks will yet again be flooded. This will have devastating human, environmental and financial consequences for our local area. The Galway to Limerick railway track will flood and be closed. The M18 Galway to Limerick motorway will also be flooded, not to mention numerous local roads. This will all have dire consequences for our region.

This much-needed project has met with successive delays and setbacks over the past eight years. We are, however, slowly moving in the right direction. I ask that the Minister of State familiarise himself with this critical project and put every effort and the resources necessary into progressing this scheme to planning submission stage before the end of the year.