Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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28. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will provide details of any best international comparisons undertaken by him in his role as Minister for the OPW regarding flood relief and climate adaptation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22087/23]

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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The Office of Public Works (OPW) is engaging internationally with colleagues in other jurisdictions on the mutual challenge of managing flood risk. Last November, I and my officials visited a number of areas in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium to witness at first hand the impact of flooding and to see how measures to manage flood risk are being delivered.

Record-breaking rainfall over two days in July 2021 caused devastating flooding in Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. In the North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatine in Germany and in the Wallonia region in Belgium, over 220 people died and some 150,000 people were affected. The damage caused by the catastrophic flooding ran into the billions of Euro and in the Wallonia region in Belgium alone was estimated at €5.2 billion. In this area 45,000 houses and buildings were damaged, 11,000 cars were destroyed and 150,000 tonnes of debris was generated and 3,000 people ultimately had to be rehoused due to the destruction and damage to their homes. It was described as one of the greatest natural disasters the country has ever known.

I engaged with subject matter experts in each of these countries to explore policies and strategies to address river and coastal flooding, including the delivery of flood defence projects, the potential for nature-based and other innovative solutions and the role of community resilience.

It is likely that climate change will have significant impacts on flooding and flood risk in Ireland due to rising sea levels, increased rainfall in winter, more heavy rain days and more intense storms. Managing Ireland’s flood risk is a long-term commitment, requiring a multi-sectoral approach through both capital infrastructural measures and non-infrastructural measures. The OPW is leading a proactive and whole of Government approach to managing flood risk that takes the potential impacts of climate change into account, across three strategic areas -

• Prevention - avoiding construction in flood-prone areas.
• Protection - taking feasible measures to protect areas against flooding.
• Preparedness - planning and responding to reduce the impacts of flood events.

An independent peer review was carried out in 2015/16 by the Dutch Risk Reduction Team of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment of the Netherlands to validate the approach to flood risk management policy in Ireland. It was carried out at a high-level and examined broad policy, strategy and financial issues, with comparison made to international approaches and safety standards, and took into account statutory requirements and contexts.  The main finding of the Dutch Risk Reduction Team was that Irish flood risk management complies with international best practice and is well on track.