Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Question 60: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the number of flood hazard areas that have been identified by the Office of Public Works as part of the flood hazard mapping; if the OPW has information about how many or how much of these sites are on land zoned for future residential communities; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7394/08]

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Question 61: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the amounts spent by the Office of Public Works on flood relief works for each of the past three years with a breakdown of the amount spent for the past three years on flood risk management that does not involve flood relief works; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7396/08]

Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 60 and 61 together.

Arising from the National Flood Policy the Office of Public Works is engaged in a programme to produce national flood hazard maps. In the first phase of the programme the OPW assembled historic records of actual flood events from various sources for display on a public website, www.floodmaps.ie. The records obtained vary considerably in terms of their level of detail and reliability. Also, the degree of risk indicated by these records may have been affected by developments subsequent to the flood events they record. For this reason they cannot be taken as definitive indicators of flood hazard areas. The primary purpose of displaying this data is to raise the awareness of interested parties, especially planners, of areas that may be liable to flood, pending the availability of more comprehensive flood mapping.

In 2007 OPW commenced a Catchment Flood Risk Assessment and Management Programme that will look in depth at flood risk in each catchment. As part of this Programme comprehensive maps indicating areas predicted to be affected by floods of differing severity will be developed and will be displayed on the floodmaps website. The programme will take a number of years to complete. During 2008 OPW will undertake a Preliminary Flood Risk Assessment that will produce indicative maps showing areas, countrywide, which it is considered may have a significant flood risk, as required by the recently introduced EU Floods Directive.

Under the National Flood Policy OPW's role in relation to development management is to provide advice to Local Authorities in relation to flood risk. The data on the website can be readily imported by Local Authorities onto their own information systems. It is a matter for the Local Authorities to have regard to this data when planning future development. OPW, in conjunction with the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, is currently developing detailed guidance for Local Authorities in relation to the consideration of flood risk in Planning and Development management and control.

Expenditure by OPW on flood risk management programmes in the past three years was as follows:

The above figures do not include the salaries of OPW engineering and administrative staff who, in addition to their involvement in the programmes listed above, were also occupied in related activities such as developing research programmes.

In addition to the above, amounts of €15.7m, €16.4m and €19.3m were spent on maintenance of completed flood relief schemes and arterial drainage schemes, which also contributes to flood risk management.