Flood Prevention: Motion [Private Members]

Deputy Peadar Tóibín

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

notes that:

— increased flooding is destroying property, causing hundreds of millions of euros of damage, and putting lives at risk;

— communities are waiting, in some cases for decades, for flood defences, protection and amelioration projects to be built;

— the delivery of flood defences is dangerously slow or grinding to a complete halt, with planning, licensing, permitting, tendering and the delivery of judicial reviews being slower in Ireland than in most of the European Union;

— flood forecasting has been available in the State for the last 10 years, but has not been made available to the public; and

— flood campaigners who have sought flood forecasts have had to contact county councils in order to get key life-saving information; and

calls on the Government to:

— immediately make flood forecasts available to the public through Met Éireann;

— introduce push notifications for flood warnings in local areas that have a significant threat of flooding;

— set up weather stations in mountain areas where the level of rainfall has a significant impact on river catchments;

— adequately staff planning departments in city and county councils;

— adequately staff An Coimisiún Pleanála;

— reform the planning process by ensuring that vexatious planning objections are no longer allowed, and objectors who do not have a geographic or a material interest in a project should not be allowed to object to a planning application for a flood defence or flood alleviation plan where life and livelihoods are under threat;

— take planning applications for flood defences and flood amelioration projects, where life and livelihoods are threatened, out of local authorities where blockages exist, and create a fast-tracked national planning process for these projects, and this will help flood defence schemes that affect numerous counties;

— simplify planning applications and ensure that only one standardised planning application is necessary for all planning, permitting, licensing and regulatory authorities;

— rebalance the planning process where habitat and Special Areas of Conservation planning conditions exist, in favour of protecting human life and livelihoods that are threatened by flooding;

— expedite public consultations where life and livelihoods are threatened by flooding;

— roll out nature-based solutions and compensate farmers upstream on river catchments to reduce flooding;

— end construction on flood plains;

— properly staff the court system, so that judicial reviews are dealt with in a speedy fashion;

— streamline the judicial review process by removing time-consuming procedures; and

— review the lack of financial supports for those who cannot get insurance for cars and other costly possessions with a view to supporting these families.

There is an anger building throughout many regions in the country at the lack of the ability of the Government to build flood defences. The dysfunction of this Government when it comes to the construction of infrastructure is putting life, limb and livelihood in severe danger across the Twenty-six Counties. It is not just about money. At the heart of this problem is gross Government incompetency to build infrastructure.

Much of the country was flooded last week. The Government cannot control the weather but it can control the forecasting that happens and the flood defences that are allowed to be put in place to protect communities. Two years ago, I asked the Minister for public expenditure for a timeframe for the delivery of flood schemes throughout the country. The Minister refused to give me a timeframe. Why? This Government is allergic to accountability and measurables. It does not want a situation whereby it can be held to account on this particular issue.

Let us consider some of the projects. Midleton was devastated by Storm Frank in 2015. Houses and businesses were trashed and lives were put at risk. That community was promised that flood defences would be built but nothing happened. Storm Babet hit in 2023. Some 600 homes and 300 businesses were damaged by the floods. The cost of those particular floods was €200 million. Storm Babet nearly took human life. So fast was the influx of water in some locations that people were caught in their houses and barely able to get out. Cars were floating down driveways and through estates.

It is now 2026. What happens in the likes of Midleton at the moment is that an elderly gentleman stays awake in the middle of the night to watch river levels to see if the banks are going to break so he can tell the families living next to the river that their lives are in danger. In 2026 in Midleton, a human water gauge is the difference between a person losing his or her life and not. That is an incredible situation. In 2026, a planning application has not even been put into Cork County Council for flood defences for Midleton. A planning application has not even been written.

Enniscorthy has been waiting for a project for 25 years. In 2014, €55 million was allocated to the flood defence scheme in Enniscorthy. The town was a lake last week. There have been 12 floods in those 25 years. A planning application has not even been written for that project. That is an absolute disgrace. There is a direct responsibility in the administration of this country for that problem.

In Clontarf, it has taken 30 years from concept to completion for flood defences. In Sandymount, it has taken 20 years from concept to completion for flood defences. Flood defences were promised in Galway in 2019 but there is no word of them happening before 2034. For all those projects, the timelines will only apply if everything works perfectly. We know there are plenty of slips between the cup and the lip in these particular projects.

In every single area of infrastructure, this Government is failing in delivery. We heard from Uisce Éireann at a committee recently. Its representatives said it is going to take until 2050 before the gaps in water infrastructure, which are holding back the building of houses, are filled. We know that right now, the M50 is a car park. People are paying €200 million per year in tolls on the M50 to sit in a car park. We know that the housing crisis is going into reverse due to the lack of an ability of the Government to build.

Planning, licensing, permitting, tendering and judicial reviews in this country are slower than anywhere else in the European Union. These are all areas for which the Government is responsible. These are all areas in the gift of the Government.

The area of flood forecasting is even more frustrating. I listened to the news last week about what happened in Rathfarnham. People said they simply did not know it was going to happen. The first they knew of it was when they were inundated with water coming through their front doors at 5 a.m. In 2016, the Government created a flood defence weather forecasting system. It sounded fantastic. It looked at river catchment areas and river height levels. It looked at saturation levels on the ground. That information has been available since 2016 to everybody but the taxpayers who are paying for it. Incredibly, the information is not given to the general public. It is given to the local authorities and if you are that poor, unfortunate fellow who is the water gauge in Midleton, you have to go onto the county council's website on a regular basis to get the updates. Other countries provide push notifications. People get a text to tell them that serious rainfall is likely in the local area, there is a good chance the river will overflow and they should protect life and property. That does not happen in this country. It is not that a big investment is needed to make this service available to the public. It is not even that there is a technical problem with making the information available to the public. All that is needed is a bloody decision to be taken by the Government. It is incredible that the service is not available. The fact that we do not have weather stations on top of mountains in river catchment areas means we are dependent on radar to tell us the level of rain that is likely to fall in a particular area.

Aontú has put forward this motion. One of the big problems in the political system is that everybody is focused on the media cycle. Flooding is going to drop off the media cycle as soon as the weather gets better and everybody here will forget about flooding for the next two or three years until there is another massive flooding crisis. Everybody will then be shocked, annoyed and stressed. Let us not do that to the people. Let us put in the work now to ensure that in two years' time this crisis does not happen again.

We are looking for simple things. We want to make sure that those weather forecasts are made directly available to the people and that push notifications are put in place. We want weather stations in mountainous areas for river catchments. With regard to the planning aspects of the issue, we must ensure that Departments, county councils and An Coimisiún Pleanála are properly staffed. I know of builders whose applications for hundreds of houses have been in An Coimisiún Pleanála for 18 or 20 months. Decisions are yet to be made on those applications. The organisations that are making the planning decisions do not currently have the necessary staff. We need to reform the planning system to exclude vexatious planning objections. If you are building a slatted shed in Cork, people in Donegal can put in objections, despite the fact that they have no material or geographical interest. They can submit vexatious objections that can total the whole process forever. That needs to come to an end.

We also need to ensure that we have a balance in this situation. Right now, we have special areas of conservation, SACs, and habitat directives. They are important and fulfil a particular role. The pearl mussel in Enniscorthy is an important part of biodiversity. However, human life is also important. Livelihoods are important. We need to completely rebalance the hierarchy of priorities when it comes to planning applications in favour of human beings in the context of projects where life is under threat. That needs to happen.

We also need to simplify planning applications. I know of planning applications that need a van to be brought to the location. There are 30,000 pages in some planning applications. Surely something will go wrong in those planning applications that will allow for a judicial review. A smart solicitor only needs to find one line on one page that is out of kilter to be able to hold a judicial review to slow the whole process. I also know that there are three or four different varieties of planning application. One variety is required for licensing or a particular permitting organisation. Another variety is required for the Department and another still may be required for the council.

We need one planning application to suit every single State body. An enormous layer of bureaucracy and red tape has been built up and we are drowning in it. Real people will drown in real floods as a result if it is not sorted out. It is so frustrating.

We need nature-based solutions and to help those suffering from the costs of this. A lot of the supports for floods and storms sound great when they are launched but after Storm Éowyn, people waited months and only got a third of the income they were promised at the start. Many people who own cars in flood areas do not have insurance. We see cars floating down the road but the Government will not support the costs arising from that. We need the State to step in in terms of those insurance policies for people who live on flood plains where the State provided the planning permission for the housing to be built. I hope the Government will support and implement this motion.

Deputy Ken O'Flynn

I thank Aontú for tabling this motion. It is well put together, well thought out and well planned. I have mentioned these issues in the House on a number of occasions and brought them up when I was a member of Cork City Council regularly. Speaking of Cork City Council, 2009, the Minister of State may recall, is when Cork nearly drowned after the rivers burst their banks, waters in the dam had to be released and there was absolute destruction in the city. That was 17 years ago. We still have not seen flood defences built in the city. In Midleton, as my colleague just said, there has been no planning application made and we know the town floods regularly. Blackpool is in my constituency. Last month, I stood in a house on the Commons Road in Blackpool, which has been flooded on three separate occasions. The family, a son and his elderly mother, were just back in their property after a year, with the entire property done up and all restored, when the river burst its banks again due to heavy flooding. It was going to happen anyway and they are out of the house again for another two years. That is the reality people are living.

People tell me that when it rains, they check their gardens and cannot sleep at night because they are worried about what is going to happen. That is just in Blackpool. For businesses in Blackpool, an empty unit cannot be rented out at the moment because it is not possible to get insurance. No insurance company will cover that. Ballyvolane is higher up the hill. It flooded in 2009 and people there still cannot get insurance on their homes because there is no flood defence system there 17 years on. Imagine having the worry that either your house will go on fire, flood or something else will happen but you cannot get any insurance. That is the reality in my constituency in Cork and what people are going through day in, day out. There seems to be no let-up.

We have all spoken about planning and the need to change it but what has the Government done? Government Deputies talk the talk and wring their hands. They say lessons must be learned, we need to move faster, build houses and do this, that and the other but the Government is not doing it. It is talking about it but there is no legislation coming through this House. We are here day in, day out, hearing all these marvellous things we should be doing but they are not being done. For God's sake, would the rest of you all wake up and do your bloody job. I do not understand how it takes so long to get one thing done while people are suffering, lying awake at night wondering if they are going to be out of their home for another 12 months. That is what they are being put through.

Part of this motion is very fitting. Cork City Council passed a motion unanimously last Monday night, tabled by Councillor Noel O'Flynn of Independent Ireland, asking for a system similar to the one in the Kingdom of Spain which provides a strong model, the ES-Alert system, to be put in place. I have witnessed the system myself. It is a fantastic model that works well, alerting people of the risk in their vicinity. It is very well managed and protects personal data as well. It is not a text alert but an entire system that alerts people by telephone. That needs to be done as well.

The comments made by certain Ministers about flood plains have left a lot of questions unanswered. That needs to be addressed in the House today. Local authorities, builders and people building houses on flood plains need to get information and have a proper structure of what the Minister is actually saying about building on flood plains. We need a timeline.

Deputy Richard O'Donoghue

Common sense is not that common when it comes to Government policies. I will take the Minister of State on a small history lesson. Is he old enough to remember the Board of Works? I am. It went around and cleaned our waterways to allow for clear passage of water. Then, the OPW was set up. I mean no disrespect to the Minister of State as he is only in his position for the past 12 months, but coming from a rural background, he will have knowledge of and understand the need to keep rivers clear. We also have to protect wildlife but nobody is protecting the people. Both have to be protected.

When the OPW goes to a river now is not allowed touch the riverbed. It can touch the sides but people tell me the sides of the rivers are eroding and they are losing land. I visited a house a number of years ago in Abbeyfeale. The woman's husband has passed since. The back wall of their house was ready to fall into the river. They had to negotiate with Inland Fisheries Ireland and the OPW. All they wanted to do was divert the water a small bit so they could build up a retaining wall. The negotiations on protecting their home took two years.

The ports are dredged because silt builds up. Silt builds up everywhere, on every waterway. We want more houses to be built but the Government does not allow for any maintenance of gullies and waterways to take away the excess water. It could be synchronised by doing it on rotation, which would protect wildlife and households. The houses flooded at the moment have been flooded because of bad policy from the Government and bad maintenance because it will not maintain the rivers. The rivers have to be dredged to allow for the amount of water passing at the moment in order to protect houses. That is the reality. Until the Government gets the flood defences put in place to protect houses, it has to dredge in the interim. If a branch of a tree falls into a river, people have to go through a large amount of red tape to get removed. Newcastle West flooded, as did Abbeyfeale, Kilmallock and Dromcolliher, and that is only to mention a few. All of that was down to a lack of maintenance. The second they flooded, the machines were in and started cleaning the riverbeds straight away. Do it now. Put maintenance in place now to dredge the rivers to make sure water can run freely.

Deputy Michael Collins

I thank Aontú for tabling this motion which important for the whole country. This has been a hobby horse of mine since I came into the Dáil in 2016 because I saw, in my short two years in the council, the damage in my constituency mainly caused by blocked rivers. I genuinely want to have this addressed. What is blocking people from going in, perhaps putting in an application for a river to be cleaned out and for it to be cleaned out? It is so simple but it is made so difficult. It has destroyed houses and homes the length and breadth of the country. Nobody seems to want to tackle that issue.

I am not going to be critical of the Minister of State, Deputy Moran. He has the feet worn off himself going around visiting communities that were destroyed by flooding. That is what a Minister should do - talk to his people and businesses. I respect that but they need answers. The most mortifying thing I have found is that almost every year since I was elected, I have gone with a Minister around Bantry, a town that has been struck with floods severely, and sometimes I think I am only annoying businesses telling them we are very sorry and how terrible it is. That is not a solution. In Bantry, 42 years ago people told me they had to go into their premises and sit up on high stools because the water was tearing through the businesses. In 2025, the same thing happened. Nothing changed. I know the Minister was down in Ballylicky in 2017.

We were told about the pearl mussel and we know the pearl mussel is important. I heard a gentleman on RTÉ radio the other day talking about Enniscorthy.

He said the rivers are blocked. There is a pearl mussel on the side and it cannot be cleared. Where did the pearl mussel go when Enniscorthy flooded? It went across the field and was gone for ever. It is the same in Ballylicky. My brother, Councillor Danny Collins, dragged sandbags into houses there a few weeks ago to try to block the water. There is something wrong somewhere.

Where is the blockage, pardon the pun, in government that means legislation cannot be fast-tracked in here to make sure that rivers with problems can be cleaned out? One cannot fill a bath at home and keep running the water without expecting it to overflow and destroy the house. That is the most simple way to put it. We expect that in this country. We do not want to clean our rivers. Whether Enniscorthy, Innishannon, Ballylicky or Bantry, there is no policy to do that. That is the easiest thing to tackle.

Millions have been spent on flood relief, which we respect. Last week, I asked the Tánaiste to change that and I asked whether a policy can be brought forward to make sure that rivers are clean. He said he is looking into it. The people of Midleton, Enniscorthy or Ballylicky cannot be flooded one more time without anything being done.

Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Deputy John Cummins)

I thank all Deputies for the opportunity to speak on what is an important matter. At the outset, I acknowledge the upset that has been experienced by communities across the country, including mine, County Waterford, in recent weeks as a result of Storm Chandra.

The Government will not oppose the motion because we recognise the importance of the issue. We want to ensure that we can continue to protect against the risk of flooding through flood defence measures and reducing development in areas that are prone to flooding. We want to improve the response when it comes to communicating in and around severe weather events. We want to continue to provide sufficient relief and support to citizens and businesses which have been impacted by flood events.

As the House is no doubt aware, responsibility for floods, on behalf of Government, rests with the OPW. It is leading an ambitious national programme to protect against the risk of flooding and, to date, has invested some €580 million to complete 56 flood relief schemes which are protecting 13,580 properties nationwide, providing an economic benefit in damages avoided estimated to be in the region of €2 million. Most recently, in 2025 over €100 million was spent on delivering flood relief schemes. This is a record annual expenditure and is reflective of the progress that is being made in delivering schemes nationally. Obviously, we want to increase the level of investment in the years ahead.

Flood interventions include small-scale interventions under the minor works schemes which are delivered by local authorities. The Minister of State, Deputy Moran, has increased the threshold for this from €750,000 to €2 million. There are also larger schemes that are generally carried out by the OPW, in conjunction with the relevant local authorities, generally in urban areas and designed and prioritised based on catchment flood risk assessment and management. An Coimisiún Pleanála generally deals with such applications due to their scale or need for environmental assessment, which is a requirement of EU law. Action is also being taken to complement this approach, as the Minister responsible for the OPW is proposing to assign the consent function for flood relief schemes progressed under the Arterial Drainage Act to An Coimisiún Pleanála.

Turning to action taken to manage development in areas that are at risk of flooding, which some Members have already cited, the planning system and flood risk management guidelines for planning authorities were developed in 2009 by the then Department of the environment in conjunction with the OPW. Under these guidelines, planning authorities should apply a sequential approach in aiming to avoid development in areas at risk of flooding through the zoning and development management process. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is currently working with the OPW to develop further guidance on the consideration of the potential impacts of climate change on flooding and flood risk as part of the planning and development management process and the application of these.

The assessment of individual planning applications remains to be carried out on a case-by-case basis by each planning authority and-or An Coimisiún Pleanála, in accordance with the requirements of the legislation, including the development plan for areas and the 2009 guidelines. The Office of the Planning Regulator has a statutory responsibility for the independent evaluation and assessment of local authority development plans and, where appropriate, may recommend to me, as Minister with responsibility for planning, to use my power to direct changes to a particular plan. My predecessors and I have issued 14 such directions regarding flood risk since 2021. There are, however, already significant urban areas in the country beside rivers and seas that are vulnerable to flooding for historic reasons, which is why a system for alerts to give early and adequate warnings is so important.

The OPW has responsibility for establishing flood risk management plans in Ireland and established and led the three-legged framework for flood monitoring, forecasting and warning, referred to as the national flood forecasting and warning service, NFFWS. As part of the first phase of the establishment of the NFFWS, a flood forecasting centre was established in Met Éireann and has provided flood forecasting information to emergency management stakeholders since early 2024. The flood warning leg was to be progressed during the later stages of the NFFWS.

In line with a strong record on the provision of open data, Met Éireann plans to increase the information it makes publicly available as the flood monitoring leg of the NFFWS develops. Met Éireann communicates expected flooding with the public through existing systems and the inclusion of flood information in public weather warnings and forecasts, including on its website, mobile apps and other media channels. In support of flood forecasting, Met Éireann has also significantly expanded its weather monitoring networks, upgrading weather radars and extensively expanding its weather prediction systems.

The flooding associated with Storm Chandra has demonstrated the limitations of a system in which weather warnings and emergency flood forecasting capability exist but are not underpinned by an official public warning function. Looking forward, the Office of Emergency Planning in the Department of Defence, as chair of the Government task force on emergency management subgroup, is developing a plan for the next stage of the NFFWS which will enable the implementation of comprehensive nationwide localised warning system.

It is important to point out for those who have been affected by flooding that there are a number of measures in place, including the emergency humanitarian flooding scheme, which has been operated by the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment since 2018. The scheme provides a contribution of up to €20,000 for small businesses with up to 20 employees as well as community, voluntary and sporting bodies. A prerequisite of the scheme is that businesses or community and sporting bodies must have been unable to secure flood insurance through no fault of their own and to evidence their efforts if necessary. The scheme is typically opened after a severe flooding event and is administered on behalf of the Department by the Irish Red Cross. In response to extreme weather conditions in the wake of Storm Chandra in January, the Department opened an enhanced version of the scheme under which the maximum funding amount has been increased to €100,000 from €20,000 and businesses employing up to 50 people are now included.

Separately, the emergency response payment, formerly the humanitarian assistance scheme, provides financial support for people whose homes are damaged by flooding and severe weather events and have been unable to meet emergency costs for essential needs, household items and structural repairs. This support from the Department of Social Protection is a three-stage process. Stage 1 of the scheme addresses hardship in the immediate aftermath of an emergency event and provides emergency support payments to cover immediate and essential costs, including the purchase of food, clothing, bedding and essential personal items for immediate use. Stage 1 is not income tested.

Stage 2 involves the replacement of white goods, basic furniture items and other essential household items and generally applies after the event. Stage 3 covers the cost of essential structural repairs to a person's primary residence, such as plastering, dry lining, the relaying of floors, electrical rewiring and painting. The income limits for stages 2 and 3 of the scheme are €50,000 for a single person and €90,000 for a couple or single parent and €15,000 per dependent child. Reduced or tapered levels of support apply where household income is above these limits. The scheme can cover replacement and repair costs under stages 2 and 3, in circumstances where the household can demonstrate that it was unable to secure adequate insurance cover.

The Government is absolutely committed to ensuring that we can protect more properties from flooding as a result of flood alleviation schemes, to improving our communications ahead and during severe weather events and to ensuring that adequate support is provided to householders and businesses that are impacted by floods. As a Government, we acknowledge, as I said at the outset, the upset and the devastation that have been experienced by households across this country as a result of the most recent events, and we will work as a Government to ensure that we will continue to progress those measures. I know the Minister of State, Deputy Moran, will refer to that in his closing.

Deputy Richard O'Donoghue

Sorry, Chair. On a point of order-----

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Aindrias Moynihan)

Go raibh maith agat. No. A Theachta-----

Deputy Richard O'Donoghue

There was not one thing in that ten-minute speech about cleaning the rivers or maintenance-----

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Aindrias Moynihan)

Nóiméad amháin. Is é an chéad ghrúpa eile-----

Deputy Richard O'Donoghue

-----and not one thing about protection of people's homes.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Aindrias Moynihan)

No. We are moving on. The next speaker is from the Independent Technical Group.

Deputy Ken O'Flynn

You have to allow a point of order, Chair.

Deputy Richard O'Donoghue

You have to allow a point of order, Chair.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Aindrias Moynihan)

Deputy Paul Lawless has the floor.

Deputy Richard O'Donoghue

On a point of order, from the point of view of people's homes, there was not one thing in the ten minutes-----

A Deputy

That is not a point of order.

Deputy Richard O'Donoghue

People's houses are flooding because of the Minister of State. There is no maintenance.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Aindrias Moynihan)

Deputy O'Donoghue, sit down. Deputy Paul Lawless has the floor.

Deputy Paul Lawless

Go raibh maith agat, Chair. I welcome the cross-party-----

Deputy Kevin Boxer Moran

Sorry, a Chathaoirligh. A statement was made there-----

Deputy Richard O'Donoghue

Oh, the Minister of State is-----

Deputy Kevin Boxer Moran

No.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Aindrias Moynihan)

Deputy Paul Lawless has the floor.

Deputy Kevin Boxer Moran

Grandstanding for social media when there is a scheme for cleaning rivers. How dare you.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Aindrias Moynihan)

There is only one speaker, Deputies.

Deputy Kevin Boxer Moran

That is unfair. You know I announced the scheme. Making a statement just for social media is wrong.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Aindrias Moynihan)

Deputy Paul Lawless has the floor. A Aire, do not draw Deputy O'Donoghue on.

Deputy Kevin Boxer Moran

It is sending out the wrong message to the public.

Deputy Richard O'Donoghue

If you will allow me to speak, Chair-----

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Aindrias Moynihan)

Stop. Deputy Paul Lawless has the floor.

Deputy Paul Lawless

Go raibh maith agat, Chair. I welcome the cross-party support for this motion and the fact that the Government will not oppose it. However, I do want to say very clearly, it is one thing not to oppose this motion but it is another thing to implement fully the practical measures we have proposed that will have a significant impact in so many thousands of families and businesses right across this country. I urge the Minister of State to really get to grips with this and drive on with this legislation because it is clear there is cross-party support both in government, from Aontú and right across the Opposition.

In relation to Met Éireann, I have spoken to a number of families who are affected by the floods and they are so frustrated by the fact that there is information out there that is available to Met Éireann that is not getting to them. That information is really valuable. It is valuable in terms of preparing for a potential emergency evacuation. That is why it is in our motion, and it is unforgivable that this is currently the case. At the very least, we need to ensure that the families who are affected have all the information available to them.

My colleague Deputy Tóibín outlined the motion in clear detail earlier. I will address a point the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, made about the humanitarian assistance scheme, HAS. We had Storm Éowyn last year in Mayo and right across the west. It affected thousands of families, and many of those families came to me with the application form. The application form clearly stated what it would cover, and the rejection letters then outlined the very things that it was set out to cover and the letters stated what is not covered. For example, food and clothing were two items specifically mentioned on the application form and specifically mentioned in the rejection letter as well. That is so frustrating for families who have been so badly affected. They apply for something the Government advertises only to receive a rejection letter on the basis of the criteria it has set out. That needs to be addressed. This is a serious issue in relation to the humanitarian assistance scheme.

When flooding happens in the spring and the autumn, farmers are desperately affected as well in terms of bringing in livestock. That needs to be looked at. We need to assist them in terms of compensation for additional fodder and housing, etc.

The flood defence system and the planning system for flood defences are incredibly bureaucratic, and that red tape needs to be removed. There are people who can no longer wait for a planning system that takes ten or 20 years in some cases. That is wrong. The entire House supports this motion, and Government members themselves have outlined this morning that they support it. I ask them to get on with passing the legislation to ensure that the bottlenecks are removed. We have been very clear on what needs to happen, and there is no reason for the Minister of State to preside over additional delays.

I welcome the work of the Minister of State, Deputy Boxer Moran, over recent weeks, and it is very clear that he is listening to the people in this time of crisis. I ask him to continue to listen to the people across this country. In Charlestown, in Mayo, there is a river that has almost burst its banks. These families are seeking for that river to be cleaned, etc., and it is so frustrating that still has not happened and we are almost a year after some homes and businesses being flooded. The people on the ground know best, and a clear prioritisation needs to be given to human beings, their families, their businesses and their homes in relation to this. Yes, we need to protect the environment and we need to protect the ecosystem in our rivers, but families and their homes must be protected as well, and in that hierarchy of prioritisation I believe human beings have fallen off the cliff. I ask the Minister of State to listen to families and the people most affected and ensure that human beings and families are prioritised as well.

In relation to the recent Labour Party proposal regarding situations where, for example, local authorities purchase equipment for flooding, etc., I ask that they be compensated. I am sorry to have gone over my time.

Deputy Paul Nicholas Gogarty

Looking at the bigger picture, in 30 years' time, in 2056, it is estimated that the sea level will have risen by up to half a metre, so we are talking about a lot of land along the coast that will be decimated no matter what we do, no matter how many Y-shaped concrete structures we put in. In terms of being strategic with that climate change risk, we have to look at certain areas that will have to be lost to the sea, like they have done on the east coast of Great Britain, and strategically retreat from certain areas. We have to say to people, "We are going to pay for you to have a brand-new insulated house but a little further back." Then we have to focus on the areas we can actually protect rather than trying to fight the indefensible. When you look at the likes of Dublin, from a housing perspective, as I have said before, but equally from a flood perspective, we need to start to go up and we need to start building houses on stilts. We should look at what is happening in the Netherlands and plan for future inundations in areas of high population density.

At the same time, one-in-a-hundred-year floods are now one-in-20-year floods, and with the rainfall affecting a lot of the rivers around our country, we will have the same level of inundation. In my constituency we have had several unanticipated floods over the past two decades and it will only get worse. That is because of policy. I note there is a €1.3 billion plan to look at flooding around the country and at alleviation. One of the points is about rewilding and replanting, but I would like to see a little more on that. We have decimated our native forests. Where we have replanted trees we have put in conifers. We are talking about Irish beef being better than Brazilian beef and getting into this big argument. Personally, I believe that if we are polluting the rivers by getting a nitrates derogation to be exporting beef, we are still on the wrong side. We have got rid of a lot of land that used to be a natural floodplain to use it for grazing to produce inefficient beef when we do very little from the tillage end.

On the planning side of things, we are not looking seriously enough at green roofs on buildings in terms of soakage. As it stands, we have seen communities around the country - the Celtic tiger was the height of it, but it still happens, including in my constituency - such as the Clonburris SDZ, where, when I was a councillor, we tried to put 442 houses away from a floodplain and put in GAA pitches, which would have served for six to nine months of the year, then building higher at a train station. Unfortunately, certain councillors voted against us on that, so now we are adding to the amount of water going into the River Griffeen and we will see flood instances down the road again.

I might be digressing but, even though it is kind of counter-intuitive, we need to look at a strategy for all-weather pitches because more and more of the GAA, rugby and soccer pitches are being waterlogged. We need to have some sort of water storage and proper drainage for grass pitches and all-weather pitches in our communities. However, that is a separate debate.

I do not believe that, as a country, we are taking the issue of future flooding seriously enough. It is all about crisis management and putting into place plans that were supposed to be in place 20 years ago and we are looking at it on a community-by-community basis. We are saying Midleton and we are saying Fermoy. That is all welcome and they all need the flood alleviation but we are not looking at the long-term picture that we are going to be fighting crisis flooding for the next couple of centuries. We must look at retrenchment. We have to look at where we are building and where we should not build. We are not looking at that enough. We should be rewilding, planting more trees, which create the soakage, and allowing natural river plains to spread out. We will lose a lot of acreage but we may have a more sustainable way of life for the country going forward. Otherwise, we are going to be spending multiple billions of euro to deal with sticking plasters when we should be looking at the root cause and trying to tackle it as quickly and as early as possible.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Erin McGreehan)

Before we move on to the next speaker, I welcome on behalf of Senator Michael Kennelly students from the Presentation Secondary School in Listowel, County Kerry, and their teachers Norma Dowling and Louise McAuliffe. They are all very welcome today and I hope they have a wonderful day in Leinster House.

Deputy Pa Daly

I, too, welcome the school community from the convent in Listowel. It is entirely appropriate that there is a school delegation here from the town of Listowel because anyone in this House will remember the flooding that took place two or three weeks before the election of November 2024. Unfortunately, while work has been done in Listowel, which the Minister visited recently, where banks have put in, we remember what happened in Killacrim and off the Bridge Road. However, the long-term plan, which we recently met with Kerry County Council about, has not been put in place to address the issue of flooding and forestry upriver. The forestry is not only causing a biodiversity crisis and cleaning out the rivers literally and metaphorically with the absence of brown trout in the rivers up around the Knocknagoshel area, the Lyracrumpane area, the River Awbeg and other tributaries of the River Feale. The water that is going in there has not been addressed and there is no long-term plan in place.

Over the past few weeks other communities around the country have been devastated and homes have been destroyed, but the fallout have not been unforeseeable or unavoidable. It exposes how unprepared this Government has been. Flooding is not simply a matter of heavy rain; it is years of underinvestment, inadequate infrastructure and lack of long-term planning. Has river restoration been taken into account? No. Nature-based solution like they have in the Netherlands and Germany or what they have done in Yorkshire have not been taken into account. Has there been much investment in wetlands, afforestation plans or peatland restoration? No. We await the long-term plan for the Listowel area. Kerry County Council has told us that it has not been dealt with yet. No consideration has been given to upland tributaries and rivers. We still do not have a national flood warning system in place. This is an outrageous oversight in the face of worsening storms because they are going to continue. Our policy seems to have been more payments and then blaming judicial reviews and the pearl mussels. That is not good enough.

Deputy Conor D. McGuinness

The ongoing and very real impact on the community in Passage East in County Waterford and the serious shortcomings in response to recent flooding events must be to the forefront of the Minister's mind having visited there last weekend. My colleagues, Councillor Pat Fitzgerald and Deputy David Cullinane, and many residents have raised the need for an effective early warning system with timely and accurate information. This must be addressed as a matter of urgency.

Probably the most frustrating issue that locals raise is the long-standing underinvestment in storm water and drainage infrastructure in Passage East. Without significant and sustained investment, flooding will remain a recurring threat. In west Waterford and particularly in Tallow, Councillor Donnchadh Mulcahy and I have consistently raised the need for funding and delivery of the Tallow flood relief system where existing systems have failed residents. We welcome the start of a detailed flood investigation of West Street and the River Bride in Tallow and the OPW approval of funding under the minor flood mitigation works scheme last year. However, it has taken far too long to get to that point.

I know the Minister will shortly receive advanced and updated flood relief plans for Passage East, Tallow and other parts of County Waterford. It is time to now translate those plans into action, with funding allocated and clear timelines put in place, because communities like Passage East and Tallow cannot continue to live with the fear of repeated flooding. We need those proper early warning systems, effective emergency responses and, crucially, that much-needed and long-awaited investment in flood relief measures that will protect homes and businesses.

Finally, I want to point out the consistent lack of funding for road services and local authorities. It is causing havoc for our regional and local road networks. That is put in sharp relief when we see the emergence of potholes after adverse weather conditions. Areas that are not experiencing the worst cases of flooding are seeing spot flooding and increased amounts of surface water. The roads right across the State and right across County Waterford are in rag order. It is something that needs to be addressed.

Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú

To put it lightly, it would be fair to say we had serious rains and serious flooding. There are issues that need to be dealt with in north Louth. In fairness to the Minister of State, Deputy Moran, he was in Blackrock recently. We need to make sure that catchment-based flood risk assessment and management, CFRAM, is driven ahead. For Dundalk and Blackrock south we are only talking about the application going in probably around June 2027. However, we need to make sure there are no hold-ups and that any short-term mitigations can be introduced.

The Cathaoirleach Gníomhach, Deputy McGreehan, will well know the issues that have happened and constantly happen in north County Louth, particularly out by the Cooley Peninsula out to the Border. There is a considerable amount of works that should and can be done. Councillor Antóin Watters is one of many who brought up these issues with me and others.

When I talk about Dundalk, I can talk about the Ardee Road and the fact we have issues that are caused by the River Blackwater. We have finally received promises to clean the River Blackwater and The Ramparts. We have seen the introduction of pumps. We need to ensure that Louth County Council has access to them always, uses tankers and that we do the best we can in the disaster scenario.

I am talking about Bay Estate, where I live, Cluan Enda, Greeenwood Drive, Blackwater Court, Ashbrook or basically anywhere around Red Barns Road and St. Alphonsus Road. We have those issues of high tides and huge rains. However, at this point in time the reason we have flooding there is that the Uisce Éireann infrastructure is not up to scratch. I refer to the issue with CFRAM and the issue with the Coes Road pumping station, where everything from WuXi Biologics comes right through. It is a joint sewage and storm water facility. The fact is it is not going to upgraded completely. Works will start in about 2027 but will not finish until 2029 or 2030, according to the council. Even worse, the wastewater treatment plant is not due to be upgraded until 2033. There is no capacity and we are lucky we did not have hundreds of houses flooded.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Erin McGreehan)

Thank you, Deputy. Your time is up, even though I agree with you. I call on Deputy Mythen.

Deputy Johnny Mythen

My hometown of Enniscorthy is in a state of devastation. The people on Island Road on the quays of the River Slaney have experienced awful destruction and major damage to their homes and businesses. This is not the first time; it has happened 16 times since 2000. How can this be allowed to go on for decades? The town needs help and it needs it now. I know the Minister and the Taoiseach visited the town, and I thank the Minister for that, but people are sick to their stomach with statements, promises and platitudes. Granted, remedial works have been promised and plans are being prepared, but why does it take a major catastrophe for anything to happen in this country?

Under the Arterial Drainage Act 1945, the Minister has the legal authority to approve a flood relief scheme, even if planning permission was previously refused, provided environmental safeguards are met. An example of this only happened this week with the Government willing to legislate to override planning constraints at Dublin Airport. If the Government can intervene using the powers it already has, then it can intervene in the planning for the flood relief scheme in Enniscorthy, County Wexford. In fact, it is a legal obligation under the 1945 Act to protect communities once a workable environmental compliance scheme is ready. Surely, the freshwater pearl mussel that was the main issue with the scheme in the first place can be translocated, just like the Dublin Bay oyster.

I am pleading with the Minister to act now. Under section 7 of the Arterial Drainage Act, he can approve flood relief works independently of the planning system. It is time to deliver for the people of Wexford and my hometown of Enniscorthy. They have had enough. They have been left behind, but no more. In the past, the political will dissipated as soon as the water subsided. This time, the people will rise up and be counted. They will not accept another decade of fear and panic every time there is heavy rainfall. I again ask that the Minister use his power to expedite the flood relief system for the proud and beautiful town of Enniscorthy.

Deputy Sorca Clarke

Nobody can stop a storm but the Government can and must prevent the predictable damage. The repeated extreme flooding events we have witnessed were not all inevitable but they were worsened by delay, underinvestment and a lack of urgency. Communities have repeatedly shown extraordinary levels of resilience but that is not a substitute for investment. People deserve more than hand-wringing, sympathy and sandbags. They deserve infrastructure and ongoing maintenance that safeguards their homes, farms and businesses. They deserve the Government acting before disaster strikes and not after with emergency payments. Yes, they are necessary but they are not, in and of themselves, a flood policy. They are a response after devastation and not protection beforehand.

This is not just about those vital flood defences. There is a serious element to this around the restoration and maintenance of our riverways, public safety and fairness because what was once exceptional is now too often routine. The science has been very clear for a long number of years. Warnings were repeatedly put out there, and yet too many communities are enduring a relentless cycle of flooding, fear and neglect. Homes have been destroyed, farms battered and small businesses pushed to the brink, and with insurance withdrawn.

Families are still told to wait for studies, plans and processes that all move at glacial speed. This represents a profound disconnect from the reality of the urgency that exists on the ground. Yes, flood relief and prevention schemes are complex, yet oversight matters. The excessive timeline from planning to procurement to completion is simply unacceptable. Communities cannot remain trapped behind red tape while risks escalate year after year. Those communities need urgency. We need delivery. We need long-term investment in flood mitigation and climate adaptation. Above all, though, we need a Government that treats flooding not as an occasional emergency but with the same level of priority as communities feel when they watch in horror and fear, time and again, as the water levels rise, destroying everything they have worked for.

Deputy Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin

People in Bunclody, Enniscorthy, Aughrim and Arklow are still trying to pick up their lives after the recent floods. The cameras have gone, the spotlight has moved on, and the Minister and the Taoiseach have arrived to tell the people the money is there, these things take time and there is no magic wand.

I think people in Wicklow-Wexford know that. They have been waiting for decades while the Government did nothing. Little attention has been paid to Bunclody. Enniscorthy has flooded 16 times since 2001, and going back as far as 1924. Arklow has had six major floods since 2000. The Arklow flood relief scheme has been talked about for four decades, so when the Taoiseach says these things take time, it really infuriates people. The Arklow scheme was originally supposed to cost €28 million but it is now estimated to be €57 million after years of delays and redesigns. We heard from the chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, Wicklow TD, John Brady, that millions of euro allocated for the national flood forecasting warning service were handed back, with €13.5 million handed back out of €19 million. That is absolutely crazy. Yet the Minister, Deputy Browne, was quick to point the finger of blame last week regarding where this money could have been invested in proper forecasting and warning systems. Deputy Brady also brought in the Flood Insurance Bill 2021. This Bill needs to be pushed immediately.

Flood relief schemes are planned for Arklow, Aughrim and Enniscorthy but there is little or nothing for Bunclody. These schemes need to be moved on and progressed straightaway. People in Wicklow-Wexford are hoping and praying they will not have more storms while the Government dithers and has photo ops but takes little meaningful action. I ask the Government to please get on with these schemes now because people cannot wait any longer.

Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak about flooding today. The Minister of State, Deputy Moran, will understand because he has been to County Mayo many times himself. I welcome that, after ten years, the Crossmolina scheme is going to be done. I ask that that project be expedited as quickly as possible as well as the project in Ballina. Many other smaller schemes, though, need to be done in the county, not least in Charlestown and other places.

I would ask that there is a better join-up between the OPW and the county council. What has happened is that county council outdoor staff have been reduced dramatically over the years. This is taking its toll now and we are seeing the results of it in many places where drains are not cleared and things are not done that would previously have been done by the county council staff. We have situations where homes and businesses are in danger of being flooded or have already been flooded. The Minister of State knows how flooding threats delay growth and development in small towns.

I want to bring up with the Minister of State the River Carrownisky and the problems there. They are easily fixable in terms of the bridge that needs to be done. The situation has gone on for years. All the plans and everything for it have been done. I am asking that the bridge, which is serving the communities on each side of the river, be reinstated and fixed. We are talking about a very small amount of money. It can be done with agencies working together, with Mayo County Council and tourism bodies. What is required here is that the agencies work together and not in silos to get solutions to these projects so people can get on with their lives and we can get what needs to be done, done. An awful lot of money is wasted in this country. It would be very well spent in County Mayo in dealing with some of these projects.

Deputy Natasha Newsome Drennan

In County Kilkenny, communities like Inistioge, Thomastown, Callan and Graiguenamanagh endured severe flooding during the recent extreme weather. It will take weeks to clear the damage and who knows how long to repair the destruction inflicted on local roads. This flooding has hit local families and businesses the hardest. It is very hard to tell how many of these businesses and restaurants will be able to recover from this devastation. What is certain is that a very challenging period lies ahead. In Inistioge, the pitch at the GAA club was submerged under 6 ft. of water. In Thomastown, heavy rainfall is causing part of the quay to collapse and over time it is slowly being pulled into the river. In Graiguenamanagh, it is expected that flood defence works will take nine years. How is that acceptable?

In Carlow, the banks of the River Barrow overflowed causing stress and unnecessary damage throughout the area. Plans for dredging have been held up by the national planning body. These delays are having a devastating impact on families along the River Barrow. These essential maintenance works must be made a priority before further heavy rain causes the river to overflow its banks again. This rain and the resulting flooding have devastated our local roads. The roads in south Kilkenny are particularly bad. At a local meeting the other evening, the community voiced its frustration at the lack of progress. It is now estimated that the cost to repair the roads will be around €7 million, a massive sum for Carlow County Council. All of these people pay their taxes and all of them pay road tax, yet they see very little coming back to resurface our rural roads. We need central government to step in and provide this much-needed support to the council. The Government has announced over €100 million for flood defence works. This cannot be like so many other Government announcements where the funding has been left sitting idle for years. The manpower is there. The local councils need the funding and they need it now.

Deputy Joanna Byrne

This Government treats flood prevention schemes like something that is topical or seasonal. Every year when there is flooding, as there always is, the Government parties make statements on how they are doing everything they can and make positive statements about how they are definitely tackling the flooding problem this time but, unfortunately, it does not accelerate works, it does not cut down on the bureaucracy and it does not cut down on the timelines for delivery. Its members will be making the same speeches they will make next year, or later on this year when there is more flooding around the State, and while they are doing this, the local representatives are left to warn their constituents to avoid certain areas due to more flooding. While those speeches are being made, the residents of towns and villages that have suffered flood damage multiple times will be wondering what they have to do to see some action and results. These are the residents who cannot get their homes, businesses or possessions insured anymore and they are the ones left to shoulder the costs year on year.

There are 94 flood relief schemes described as ongoing, 68 schemes have not even reached the planning stage and 54 are not even under active consideration. The five-stage process for a flood prevention scheme just takes far too long. In some areas, it is taking decades but in most places it is taking 12 to 15 years. An immediate change could be made to the stage two planning process or public exhibition confirmation, which can take up to two years. Local authority staff are well able to plan a flood defence in an area where they have been implementing emergency measures year on year. This is obviously not a matter of money as the Government has a budget surplus. The fact is that it has under-resourced local authorities, there are not adequate staff in An Coimisiún Pleanála and it has allowed construction on floodplains. The Government has allowed the OPW to become unaccountable. It needs to maintain the local rivers and the OPW must put dredging plans in place where needed.

This is the story the length and breadth of the country as we have been hearing this morning.

The fact is, as is the lived reality for people in my home area, that Mornington, Baltray and Termonfeckin will flood again. Until flood schemes and mitigation works are completed, this is the sad reality they must live with. We need to act now. Let us not be obliged to have this conversation again this time next year.

Deputy David Cullinane

I thank the Minister of State for visiting Passage East on Sunday last. He met with the local authority and with residents whose homes were affected by flood damage. He would have heard at first hand that what those who were affected by the floods in Passage East want is less talk and more action. There were concerns raised - rightly so - by residents in regard to the response from Waterford City and County Council. They were not pointing the finger of blame at individual staff members. They acknowledged that the staff do a very difficult job in difficult circumstances, but it was acknowledged, even by the CEO of the council, that there have to be learnings. There were failings, and we have to get better at supporting communities during floods.

Having visited Passage East before the Minister of State went there, it was obvious that multiple problems have been exposed. It is not just one problem; the whole system is antiquated. It is not just from the brook where, obviously, if you have very heavy rain and a high tide, a great deal of water is going to flow downhill. The water brings with it stones and other debris that block the system. The culvert there is not fit for purpose. The drainage system comprises old clay pipes. The entire system is antiquated. What happens is that everything goes wrong when there is a high tide and heavy flooding. Homes are damaged as a result. There is a lot of work to be done in the village.

There are five schemes that are at an advanced stage in Waterford. All five need to be developed, including the one in Tallow. My colleague Councillor Donnchadh Mulcahy has raised this matter consistently at council level. The project relating to Tallow is important and needs to be delivered. All five projects are at an advanced stage and they need to be properly supported, funded and delivered, once and for all. I hope that will be the case in the aftermath of the Minister of State's visit.

Deputy George Lawlor

I thank the Ministers of State for being here. I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Moran, in particular for his visits to Wexford to view the devastation, particularly in Enniscorthy. I met him there last April when we sought to devise a new plan after the rejection, on environmental grounds, of the-----

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Erin McGreehan)

Apologies, but is the Deputy moving his amendment?

Deputy George Lawlor

I am sorry. I move amendment No. 1:

To insert the following after "with a view to supporting these families":

further notes that the increase in storm severity and recent floods are the result of accelerating climate change; and

further calls on the Government to:

— resource local authorities to hire more general operatives to ensure staff are in place to maintain and clear drains, culverts and ditches, and respond quickly to weather events;

— provide grants to local authorities to purchase emergency flood prevention equipment like Aqua Dams, and deploy strategic local reserves of sandbags to at-risk communities;

— introduce a national flood warning system and overhaul our emergency preparedness and response systems, implementing best practise from international comparators;

— place the Emergency Humanitarian Flooding Scheme for businesses and community organisations on a permanent statutory footing, as was committed to in 2023, after flooding in north Louth;

— introduce a national Flood Re scheme, modelled on the United Kingdom system, to provide re-insurance to the increasing number of homes and businesses denied coverage even when flood defences are in place; and

— reform the Office of Public Works, to give it a stronger statutory role in climate mitigation and flood prevention works.".

The Minister of State, Deputy Moran, and I met in Enniscorthy last April to outline, in conjunction with the Office of Public Works, OPW, the plans for a new application for a flood relief scheme that is so badly needed by the people of Enniscorthy. For decades, this town has suffered. I will not say that it has been affected on an annual basis, but it has been affected regularly. I know Joe Berney of Berney Saddlery Limited, which is located on the quay in Enniscorthy and which has been flooded 16 times. That is devastating.

There is one matter I would like to raise. Perhaps the Minister of State could investigate it. Why are all the State-operated water level and tide gauges not on the same portal? WaterLevel.ie is operated by the OPW and the Marine Institute operates its real-time observations in respect of tidal issues. This type of siloed thinking, where the OPW looks after inland areas and the Marine Institute looks after the sea, is a perfect example of how we need to bring this together. Enniscorthy is tidal up as far as the bridge from Wexford Harbour, but then the River Slaney comes into it. Two different agencies appear to be operating the portals relating to tide levels and gauges. That is something we need to investigate, particularly in a place like Enniscorthy, which is essentially covered by both.

Enniscorthy was the focal point of the flooding in Wexford. We all saw the devastation there but we also, as the Minister of State knows, saw devastation in Bunclody, where many houses were flooded, Bridgetown, which flooded in the past and was flooded again, and Kilmore and Our Lady's Island, places that have seen flooding. It is 60 years since Bunclody was flooded. Bridgetown was flooded only a few years ago. It was badly flooded on Christmas Day, which brought devastation. We saw Our Lady's Island lake overflow this on this occasion. In Kilmore, some local businesses suffered badly as a result of the flooding.

Our amendment calls for extra resources to be given to local authorities to hire additional general operatives in order to ensure that staff are in place to maintain and clear drains, culverts and ditches and respond quickly to weather events. I have spoken to the Minister of State about this and about providing grants to local authorities to purchase the emergency flood protection equipment such as the aqua dams. Thankfully, following the Minister of State's intervention, Westmeath County Council supplied an aqua dam to Enniscorthy. These should be available in every town and village and operated by the fire service on behalf of local authorities. They could be stored in local authority depots and deployed very quickly when there is a threat of flooding. We have enough instrumentation and information at this point to ensure that we have foreknowledge of when flooding is likely to happen. We need these interim measures.

We absolutely need a permanent solution for Enniscorthy but, for the other areas, we need to have interim or mitigation measures to allow people to be protected from flood waters. In Wexford town, we are affected by coastal flooding. The aqua barriers or dams to which I refer are readily available. One tonne sandbags and other types of sandbags are made available long in advance of any flooding arriving. Wexford County Council did its best, and nothing could have prevented the devastation that happened in Enniscorthy, even if we had received word in advance. We need to look at our warning systems. In Enniscorthy, where the flow of water from the River Slaney was devastating, there are people who are seasoned when it comes to their properties being flooded and who could have tried to get some of their equipment, furnishings, etc., to higher ground. Instead, they were battling against the tide as they strove to save some of their property.

This has been going on for far too long, as we know, but now is not the time to be battling each other. We need to work together and offer a unified front at local authority and at Government level in order to ensure that whatever measures are necessary are taken to stop this type of devastation, which happens almost on an annual basis in places in my county, from happening once and for all.

Deputy Ciarán Ahern

I thank Deputies Tóibín and Lawless for tabling this motion. The Labour Party has submitted an amendment which, we hope, will be an effort to strengthen the motion. As Deputy Lawlor said, however, this is something we all need to work together on. Like Deputy Lawlor's constituency, my constituency of Dublin South-West was hit really hard by the floods that happened in the wake of Storm Chandra, particularly Rathfarnham and parts of the Ballycullen area. I thank the Minister of State for coming to visit the parts of Rathfarnham near the River Dodder. There was significant damage in Woodside and places like that. Councillor Paddy Cosgrave and I have been working closely with local businesses and residents in the aftermath. I feel we were able to give people some practical help over the past few weeks in being a link between residents, businesses and the council and in giving a little advice about the supports that are available and that we have seen increase. Credit goes to the Minister, Deputy Burke, regarding the business support scheme.

Households in areas like Grange Park, Woodside and Nutgrove Avenue were badly affected by the flooding. Thousands of euro worth of damage has been done to people's homes and businesses. Cars have been written off. Water came up through the floorboards in houses. We are not sure about the structural damage that has been done as a result of this. There will be medium- to long-term effects, and I am glad to see the Government has some schemes in place in relation to those. Of course, they are only effective if you do not already have insurance. Obviously, there are lots of households which do not have insurance. I will get to that in a moment.

Part of the Labour Party's amendment involves putting the support schemes - the business one as well as those for affected community organisations - on a statutory footing in order that they do not require Government approval to kick in every time there is an incident of localised flooding. When pressed by my colleague Deputy Ged Nash on this matter in the aftermath of flooding in north Louth in 2023, the previous Government stated that this statutory scheme would be a priority but it still has not been delivered. If the Government wants to project a sense of urgency in dealing with issues around flooding, then this must be done immediately.

Our amendment also calls for the introduction of a flood insurance scheme modelled after the successful Flood Re scheme in the UK, which provides cover for households and businesses that are increasingly denied coverage, even when flood defences are in place near them. Grange Park in Rathfarnham previously experienced similar levels of flooding around 20 years ago. From speaking to residents in the area, I am aware that it has been a nightmare for them to get flood insurance ever since, even though there is a flood alleviation scheme being put in place right beside them.

One in 20 buildings in Ireland has limited access to flood insurance. That is a pretty incredible statistic.

I know the Minister of State has asked his officials to examine the Flood Re scheme. We very much welcome that and we would like to see some progress on it.

We do need to get our act together on flood defences. The Labour Party amendment notes the changing weather patterns we are seeing, with more rain, more frequent and severe storms and more flooding and all this is the result of climate change. We need to be clear about that. I am sure that acknowledgement was not purposely omitted from the original motion but it is really important for us that that acknowledgment that this is as a result of climate change is put front and centre here.

On the front page of today’s Irish Examiner Maynooth University’s Professor Peter Thorne is explicit that this is going to get worse as a result of climate change and we are miles behind in mitigation measures like flood defences. Progress has been too slow. The OPW in my area commenced construction on the Whitechurch Stream flood alleviation scheme in Rathfarnham three years ago. It has been beset with what look like numerous preventable delays, the consequences of which were realised in Grange Park just two weeks ago and the disruption from which has been suffered by residents on the road beside Whitechurch Stream in estates like St. Gatiens Court, Willbrook and Tara Hill for the last three years. It can be very convenient for the Government and local authorities to blame judicial reviews and scapegoat environmental concerns about these schemes as a sole reason for the delays to the flood schemes being constructed. I was dismayed to hear Ministers essentially make virtue last week of setting aside environmental concerns to expedite flood alleviation schemes. God knows our waterways are polluted enough already and are in such a bad state - Lady’s Island lake, Lough Neagh and the River Blackwater - without the Government greenlighting further destruction of precious and quickly depleting biodiversity and wildlife habitat. We need to be looking upstream at nature-based solutions rather than just this concrete-first approach. How can we possibly still be building on flood plains? It defies logic.

The issue for me and for the Labour Party is that it lies in the proper resourcing of our planning authorities and the courts to deal quickly with the applications for these schemes, and appeals when they arise, and to properly resource our local authorities and the OPW when it comes to the actual construction of the schemes so that they do not take years to complete.

Deputy Rory Hearne

This motion has some very positive aspects. It is important to highlight the issue of flooding and its impacts on people across this country. It has impacted people in so many different ways and our hearts go out to all those who are dealing with the fallout from it.

While we cannot predict whether it is going to rain tomorrow or the next day what we do know is that climate change is happening right now. We also know that we can prevent further changes in climate change. We also know we lack infrastructure investment in this country. In regard to infrastructure, this Government acts as if literally it was the weather to blame for the flooding and the failures. Let us be straight and honest. The Government’s Accelerating Infrastructure Report and Action Plan highlights that Ireland’s infrastructure gap has consistently for decades been about 25% below the European average. This is not a problem that emerged overnight. This comes from a failure of successive Governments led by Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael and the Irish State to actually take a social democratic approach to investment in public services, public infrastructure and, in particular, in local government.

Local government has been treated like an afterthought. Its capacity has been gutted. For 40 years we have had broadly neoliberal policies which have essentially outsourced the key responsibilities of local government and not invested in our public capacity and we wonder why we have floods, major traffic problems, lack of investment in our healthcare and homelessness. It is because of policy that has not prioritised public services.

Climate change is happening. It is absolutely astounding to me that it is like the Government has turned around and done a Trump on it, saying, "We are now ignoring the science. We actually do not even care about it." The all-party Oireachtas committee has identified 30 barriers to the Government meeting its targets. The Government has effectively accepted we will not meet our targets and it is almost celebrating it. I cannot get my head around this. It is jeopardising the lives of future generations and quality of life and for what? Is it to make concessions to independents? Is it to be seen as anti-green? It is so narrow, short term and populist in the worst form. We are heading towards climate catastrophe and this Government is ripping up the targets and has no intention whatever to getting near to meeting them so as to be seen as being politically populist and standing up for whoever it is saying is being left behind. All you are going to see is worsening flooding and worsening weather. We need proper investment in our infrastructure, to accept the science and to meet our climate targets. Unfortunately, the people in this country are going to lose because of the Government’s shortsightedness, its political populism and its failure to take a social democratic approach which recognises the state has to invest in delivering infrastructure on a very significant level beyond what we are doing right now.

Deputy Liam Quaide

It is increasingly baffling how utterly in limbo many east Cork residents are left over two years on from Storm Babet. I want to acknowledge the recent planning approval for a scheme that will protect Tir Cluain estate and some nearby properties in Midleton. I am conscious that the Midleton flood relief scheme is large-scale and very complex and is slowed down by the degree of engagement with landowners that it requires. As much as it should have been completed many years ago, we cannot turn the clock back on that political failure - we are where we are now – but what is really perplexing is the degree of detachment of the Minister of State’s Department from the villages that were also flooded in October 2023, namely, Mogeely, Rathcormac, Castlemartyr, Killeagh, Ladysbridge and Whitegate. There was a recent announcement that €108,000 was allocated to Whitegate but this was not for any actual flood works. It was to appoint a specialist to survey the possibility of flood works. How did it take almost two-and-a-half years since Storm Babet to make that appointment? In reply to parliamentary questions, the Minister of State has said there is a shortage of expertise in the country to help direct so-called tranche II projects. What I would like to know is how much efforts has the Minister of State engaged in to hire experts from abroad? All these villages remain in limbo and it is not acceptable.

In August 2024 two experts were commissioned by Cork County Council to assess the potential for land use or nature-based solutions upstream from Midleton. We know these measures have been very successful in settlements such as Pickering in Yorkshire. Their survey did not extend to Mogeely but my understanding is that the experts viewed Mogeely as a potential area where natural flood defences could be deployed relatively quickly at low financial cost and without the need for planning permission. There was buy-in from the local landowner there and a substantial number of houses could have benefitted. The council has, for some unknown reason, kept the nature-based report under wraps since. I requested it last August and did not receive it. It was not even released to me following a freedom of information request in October last year. Nobody is suggesting nature-based solutions are a silver bullet but they are effective with more frequent low-intensity floods and they are an important part of the overall approach.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Erin McGreehan)

Thank you Deputy. I call Deputy Farrelly.

Deputy Liam Quaide

I want to ask the Minister of State why we are not maximising the potential for nature-based solutions along with engineering methods.

Deputy Aidan Farrelly

The ways by which successive Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil governments have handled flooding over the past ten years is an example of gross incompetence. In March 2025, I put a parliamentary question to the Minister for housing - it is a shame he has left the Chamber; he has abandoned ship on this issue - asking about the national flood forecasting and warning service. I asked, in particular, why this information was not being released publicly. The service was set up in 2016. Ten years later, we still have no public information about forecasting and warnings. I was told stage 1 was being managed by the OPW and that the data was not mature enough to provide warnings for locations to the public. We asked for an update just last week. The reply from the Department of housing was there was 48 hours left. It took numerous attempts from officials in this House and from our office just to get a response and what we learned was nothing new. We have been trying to establish this for ten years and we still do not have publicly available forecasting data.

In Kildare last week we were told to brace ourselves because areas of Newbridge and Clane could be flooded due to necessary alleviation procedures at the Pollaphuca dam. The ESB was able to brief public representatives and communities but there is a bigger problem here.

We need to see investment in the dam in terms of its capacity. Questions still arise as to where the liability would fall if semi-State agencies knowingly flooded communities in this State.

I commend the Minister of State on his dedication in respect of this issue. My concern is that his colleagues in government, namely those in Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, do not share his commitment when it comes to flooding and, ultimately, climate change. I agree with Emeritus Professor John Sweeney that it is time to do what this law demands in the context of climate change.

Deputy Jen Cummins

I have spoken many times in this Chamber about flood prevention and future planning. Climate change means that Ireland will be more prone to flooding due to adverse weather conditions. In my constituency, there are a number of rivers that have either caused or threatened to cause flooding. The River Poddle flows through Kimmage, Crumlin and Harold's Cross. I am happy that a flood alleviation scheme is happening there at the moment. Work on that is ongoing. It cannot happen fast enough, particularly in view of the weather we are having. The River Camac in Kilmainham and Inchicore is in need of culvert repair, embankment reinforcement and other flood prevention measures. The River Liffey flows through Chapelizod, where residents were recently in fear of flooding due to the non-stop rain. Sandbags were issued, but they are only a temporary solution. A permanent solution is definitely needed.

Flooding of a business or home is devastating. The Minister of State may not know, but my husband's family experienced flooding in Germany a number of years ago. All of the homes in the villages around the area where they live were destroyed, as were all of the businesses. A total of 130 people died. Following that was the realisation that many people were not covered by insurance. The German Bundestag is now discussing how to ensure that every property has natural hazard cover, which can be opted out of but which has to be provided. It is time that this happened here as well. We cannot have people left in dire situations. Flooding destroys every part of a home. It also destroys people’s lives.

The other thing we need to look at is where we build homes and businesses. Floodplains are not something that should be meddled with. They are called floodplains for a reason. On that basis, we need to be cognisant of what future flooding will do. The insurance issue is one that we really need to get a handle on. It is not just flood prevention; it is also what happens afterwards when we do not have the flood prevention methods that we should have already in place.

Deputy Paul Murphy

What we have seen over the past few weeks shows how desperately unprepared the State was for the extreme weather we have experienced. This was not unpredicted. It was predicted 20 years ago that the impact of climate change was precisely going to be much wetter weather. The latter expresses itself in extreme events. Unfortunately, this is the music of the future. This is what climate change looks like in Ireland, and it is going to get worse and worse.

All over my constituency, people have told me about the damage done to their homes. They have told me that this is not the first time this has happened. There is an overwhelming sense that we were not prepared or assisted properly. A constituent from Rathfarnham told me:

There were ten children across six houses blocked in by the water for several hours on our cul-de-sac. Residents contacted emergency services. However, no emergency services attended the estate. We contacted South Dublin County Council, who stated they had no resources available and advised us to contact emergency services instead.

This was predictable, but the State was not prepared. What we have seen since is an attempt by politicians to scapegoat anybody or anything that could be found that could possibly be scapegoated. Met Éireann got blamed. The same people who gave out about too many yellow, orange and red warnings then, all of a sudden, decided that Met Éireann was to blame because it should have had more serious warnings. The habitats directive got the blame. Civil society groups that try to defend our biodiversity and nature and the kinds of measures that would cut across this flooding get the blame. The freshwater pearl mussel gets the blame. All of this is to avoid the question of who rezoned the floodplains, as John Sweeney has noted, who allowed housing closer to riverbanks than was wise and who has drastically underfunded climate adaptation measures for the past 20 years. We need real climate action and real flood adaptation measures.

Deputy Seamus Healy

Clonmel is finally a good news story where flooding is concerned. We have our flood defences in place on the basis of a one-in-100-years flood that happened previously. They have stood the test of time over the past ten to 12 years, much to the relief of householders and businesses across the town. However, it took forever to get them. I hope that places like Midleton and Enniscorthy do not have to wait as long or endure more floods before defences are put in place.

Clonmel has a history of flooding that dates way. The River Suir consistently flooded both the town and hundreds of homes and businesses from the Old Bridge right along the quays and up to Irishtown. My grandfather Patsy Meaney worked for Clonmel Corporation in the gasworks on the old Waterford Road in Clonmel. He had to go to work by boat from the steps of the town hall during the highest recorded flood in 1925. Fast forward 70 years to 9 February 1995, and his grandson - me - as Mayor of Clonmel, emerged from a successful public meeting called to stop the closure of Kickham Barracks in the town, only to find that I could not get home to the Old Bridge area because of flooding. I had to be transported by the Army in a lorry. I thank the Army for that. It has done tremendous work over the years.

The campaign for flood defences started that night, but it took 17 long years - far too long - and involved too much hardship and too much damage to homes and businesses. Clonmel is a template of what can and what must be done. The Office of Public Works must take Clonmel as the template, and must significantly shorten the time it takes to put schemes in place.

Deputy Charles Ward

Communities in the Finn Valley have suffered catastrophic flooding. In Ballybofey and Stranorlar in particular, there has been repeated flooding over the decades, including major events in the 1960s, 1990s, 2015 and 2020. Each flood has caused significant damage to homes, businesses, infrastructure and livelihoods. Families have been traumatised and communities economically and socially scarred, with some failing to recover.

The Ballybofey-Stranorlar flood scheme remains at the planning and design stage, as the Minister of State knows. Work is meant to begin in 2027. The stark reality is that this demonstrates that meaningful flood protections are literally years away, particularly in the Finn Valley, leaving the residents exposed to flooding again into the future. I commend Councillor Gary Doherty of the Finn Valley for his tireless work on this. He has not stopped for years in trying to advocate for the communities in the valley.

Repeated floods and ongoing delays make it clear that funding alone is insufficient. Immediate interim flood prevention measures are urgently required. Flood protection cannot wait because the lives and livelihoods of these citizens, particularly in the Finn Valley area where this has happened before, are petrified it will happen again. We see the constant rising of the River Finn. It is only a matter of time before something happens again.

Deputy Brian Stanley

Climate change is here, and we are seeing what it looks like. This is the beginning of it, unfortunately, with the changing weather patterns that we have been seeing in the past few years. Flood relief schemes are taking from 13 to 20 years, which is too long, to put in place. The Mountmellick and Portarlington schemes have been planned since 2017. People in the two towns are on high alert the whole time. Homes on Manor Road were flooded again in recent months. Botley Lane in Portarlington gets flooded, and there is extensive flooding in other parts of the town. Residents are on edge. The progress on both schemes, which are now nine years old, is way too slow. Planning and construction are taking too long. The completion date for those who are centrally involved in the Mountmellick scheme will at best be 2030 or 2032, and maybe even longer. For Portarlington, it is anywhere between 2030 and 2034, which is 17 or 18 years after the scheme was conceived.

We agree with what is proposed in the motion, except for the seventh point. I would say to Aontú, in the context of taking it away from local authorities, that it actually goes to An Coimisiún Pleanála. It did not go to the local authorities in the context of any of the schemes I have seen. We need to give local authorities more power and a greater role. We need to devolve more powers to them. That is exactly the problem we have because local authorities do not have sufficient staff and powers to deal with these matters. The various studies and reports on ecology, hydrology, archaeology and habitats are taking far too long, as are the public consultations and EIAs. They need to happen in tandem, not consecutively. That is the message I would give to the Minister of State.

Deputy Roderic O'Gorman

I thank the Deputies for bringing forward this important motion.

I am very conscious as we speak here this morning that there are families all over the country still undertaking a clean-up of their homes and businesses and assessing the impact of the severe flooding on them. Climate change means these floods are going to become more regular and more severe. That is why the approach the State takes to flooding needs to change. In the week since towns like Enniscorthy and Aughrim were inundated, there has been a rightful focus on the engineering solutions and why these are taking so long to deliver. Alongside engineering solutions, there must be a renewed commitment to the delivery of nature-based solutions. Let us recall what we mean by this. Nature-based solutions are about ways to retain the water at the upper end of a river catchment for as long as possible, slow down the movement of that water and allow sufficient quantities of it to soak away, rather than going straight into a river, thereby raising the level and creating the flooding. This is the first piece of flood defence we should focus on. It is not the only piece but it is absolutely essential. It is about looking at upland areas, seeing if there are forested areas to absorb water or fields that can be allowed to flood. It is about paying the landowners and farmers when they allow us to use their lands for this vital flood defence.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Council received hundreds of calls because of flooding in Newtownsmith, along the DART lines and so on. I thank the council workers, both the indoor council workers and the outdoor teams, who had to go out and respond to this. It highlights the chronic underfunding of our local authorities. Ireland is at the lowest level of funding in the European league table by a mile due to the underfunding of outdoor crews and local authorities generally. For decades, we have identified the problem of floodwater, rainwater and seawater mixing with sewerage in our area when the rains come in. The infrastructure has not been put in and the money has not been forthcoming. In Newtownsmith, where there was massive flooding, a gully was taken out about three decades ago. That is the reason all of Newtownsmith was flooded. Everybody knows it. The money has not been allocated to put in a gully which would allow the seawater to flow back out again.

I agree with a lot in this motion but I think Deputy Tóibín should reconsider the criticisms he made of forecasting by Met Éireann and orange weather warnings, given what he is now saying. I do not agree that submissions on flood protection schemes should be limited to people who have a material interest or are locally based. Should experts on flood defences and climatology, for example, not have the right to put in a submission? Of course they should. Part of the problem is that we are not listening to the experts or Met Éireann. We should start listening to them.

Deputy Barry Heneghan

I thank the Minister of State for all his work and his engagement with Clontarf since I was elected to this House. This is a story that needs to be put on the record. I am speaking to people from across Ireland who think that Clontarf and north Dublin residents objected to a wall. We are seeing flooding across my constituency, including in Howth on one of the beaches. I welcome what has been done in Portrane and I would love it to be implemented for the houses that are now at risk at the Hole in the Wall beach.

Back in 2008, Irish Water wanted to put an artery across Clontarf seafront and cover it with a berm. This was rejected, rightly so, because anyone who was elderly or vulnerable would not be able to have surveillance by passing traffic. After that, the community came together and asked for Dublin City Council to make a plan for kerbside demountables. The community never received any such proposal, so how could people accept a proposal they were not given?

I thank the Minister of State for how he has been dealing with the OPW and Dublin City Council engineers and for getting rid of the sandbags in Clontarf, alongside me, after the meeting. It shows what political pressure was needed. The people of Clontarf and surrounding areas were being punished for objecting to a giant berm along the seafront. The Minister of State has seen recently how things have gone on and the dangers of flooding. On the original promenade, there was already a plan for a mountable wall that was built over 150 years ago. I thank the Minister of State for his engagement at a meeting yesterday at which he showed me other plans. I look forward to meeting with him and local residents.

The other thing I hear constantly is that residents in Clontarf and north Dublin asked for a wall to be lowered. That is a completely different wall, which is down at St. Anne's Park. These things get confused and stories are spread by the media to build up hate and mistrust in the system. It is important to get that on the record.

I thank the Minister of State again for his engagement. People are very happy. I look forward to working with him and his Department to get this finalised.

Deputy Mattie McGrath

I thank the Minister of State for all his hard work in different parts of the country. I saw him manning the pumps a good many years ago in Athlone town. He has lived with flooding and he understands it. I also want to thank the late Teachta and iar-Aire Martin Mansergh, who did a lot in that Department. He passed away recently and we sent our sympathies to his wife Liz and family. He was a Minister who helped greatly in many areas but mainly in Clonmel. We had trouble and problems in Clonmel for decades but we have a great scheme there now. Obviously, there are little tweaking problems with pushing the water back. I want to shout out to the Clonmel borough district area staff and the engineering staff, Gillian Flynn and Paul Coffey, and thank them for their work putting up the flood defences each time there is a bad forecast. They are working, thank God. However they will not stay working. We have the folly here from our left-wing colleagues. Tá siad imithe now, like snow off a ditch. They come in and put out their fancies. Deputy O'Gorman was talking about keeping water up on the side of a hill. How would you keep water up on the side of a hill unless you had it in a bucket? He could not even hold a bucket at that.

The Waterford deep-sea port was cleaned biannually for decades, up to about 25 years ago. It is not cleaned any more. Every piece of dirt off a roof or dust off the streets and roads, fields, building sites or anywhere else eventually washes into the rivers. There is no place else to go. We must clean the rivers or the flood defences will be rendered useless.

I sympathise and empathise with the people all over Wicklow, Wexford, Waterford and many other areas who were flooded. It is not a nice situation because you do not just get water, you get lots of other stuff as well. As I said, we had solutions offered to us from Denmark and Holland, imaginative schemes about moving water on faster. We also had offers of land south of Clonmel where we would deepen the river, take the topsoil off the land, put in all the spoil and put it back again to grassland, but no, the ecologists said we have frogs, snails and everything else. People's lives and property and the people who cannot get insurance are much more important than all these ecologists and these green people who tell us we cannot do this because of snails and everything else. We need reform also in the OPW.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae

I thank the Minister of State for being very hands-on and for coming to Kerry again recently. Back in 2018, he gave us funding to clear the Flesk river. For ten years before that, we were constantly being told that it would make no difference to clear the river, that it would only make 10 mm of a difference. The highest flood that has been there in the last eight years did not come within 8 ft of the road level and it used to be 3 ft on top of the road before that. They wanted to raise the road and do everything else but the fact is, as Deputy McGrath said, we need to clean the river. That was what always happened until 2002, until some genius decided that farmers could not touch the river any more, clean it out or do what they had been doing for centuries. If they did, they would lose their farm payments. That is why the thing is getting worse and worse. Many of our rivers are still in desperate need of being cleaned. Like Deputy McGrath says, everything comes down from the hills - silt, sand, gravel and every other kind of muck - and lands in the river. If the river is not cleaned out, where is it going to go only spill out over the banks onto roads and into houses? That is the trouble we are having.

The Minister of State saw the courthouse bridge and the pipe that was crossing the eye of the bridge. That is what has been flooding the town of Kenmare for many years. I am appealing to the Minister of State to see again if there is any quick way of removing that. Whatever other work needs to be done can wait. Removing that would alleviate the serious problem in Kenmare at the present time. There are other ideas in other towns and places about holding back the water and creating flood plains. The Minister of State must get himself stuck into them and tell them that the easy way of sorting it out is to clear the rivers. There are no two ways about it.

Deputy Michael Cahill

I raise again the issue of flooding in Cromane, which the Minister of State visited, and coastal erosion in Rossbeigh. In Killorglin town, at Lower Bridge Street, properties are being affected by flooding on a regular basis. I was contacted recently about the area at the fishery which is subject to flooding as well.

We need help and I know the Minister of State has said time and again that there is plenty of money available. I hope Kerry County Council is engaging with the Minister of State regarding these areas. For the residents of Cromane Lower, the very strong tides over the past month will continue until the end of the month. Every year, on St. Patrick's Day, the high tide is a big problem. These individuals and families cannot sleep in their beds at night when there is any sort of a strong tide and it is exacerbated when it coincides with a storm.

I also want to raise an issue that I mentioned to the Minister of State recently. I know he is working on this with the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, regarding insurance for businesses. I would like to include homeowners in that category. They can get insurance for fire and theft and everything else but not for flooding. I was contacted recently by a family which, for the past 40 years, had no problem getting insurance. They are after spending tens of thousands of euro reinstating the embankment. The Department, with the work being carried out by Kerry County Council, provided a second line of defence. The family is absolutely confident that they will never again be flooded. That work was carried out about 15 years ago and they cannot get insurance. Insurance is a huge issue for homeowners as well as businesses.

Deputy Albert Dolan

The Minister of State will be aware of the south Galway flood relief scheme. It is set to protect 115 properties, family homes and businesses. What we are facing right now is a series of delays and a lack of action. I know the Minister of State is a person of action and he wants to see something happen. In November, in a response to a parliamentary question, the Minister of State said the scheme would go for planning consent by quarter 3 of 2026. I hope this timeline is adhered to because it is vital that both the OPW and Galway County Council have the responses from the National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS, have the environmental assessments carried out and, ultimately, can drive on with this project. While it a complicated scheme with turloughs, groundwater, rivers, swallow holes, etc., this project needs to be progressed as a manner of urgency. Right now, the east of the country is suffering but for a long time the west of the country suffered. We do not know when we are going to suffer again, and we need to take proactive and preventative measures to ensure this matter is dealt with.

Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation (Deputy Kevin Boxer Moran)

I am grateful for the opportunity to come before the House today. Members have already heard about the important work being undertaken across government to address the issues raised in this debate. I welcome the opportunity to engage further with Members, particularly on the role of the Office of Public Works in managing flood risk in Ireland.

First, I want to recognise the hardship and trauma caused by recent flooding. I have visited many of the affected areas and I understand the distress caused, not only by the flooding itself but also by the ongoing fear of further flooding. The Government is fully committed to taking measures to alleviate these difficulties and reduce the risk of flooding in the future. I thank all those involved in the preparation for, and response to, the flooding events. This includes volunteers, particularly organisations such as Civil Defence, who have done Trojan work and deserve the Government’s sincere thanks.

As Deputies will be aware, the response to major emergencies is carried out by the principal response agencies, namely, local authorities, An Garda Síochána and the HSE. Local authorities act as the lead agency for flood events within their administrative areas. At national level, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, through the national directorate for fire and emergency management, is designated as the lead Government Department for co-ordinating the response to weather emergencies, including flooding. In the lead-up to, and during, the flooding events, the Department convened meetings of the national emergency co-ordination group to co-ordinate actions across Government Departments and agencies.

I have listened carefully to the valuable contributions made during today’s debate, and I thank Members for their comments. I will now address some of the issues raised and outline the role of the Office of Public Works in managing flood risk. Managing flood risk is a shared responsibility across government. Flood policy is built on three key pillars, underpinned by research and evidence. Prevention involves avoiding or removing flood risk, for example, by avoiding construction on flood plains. Protection means reducing the likelihood or severity of flooding, typically through physical works such as flood relief schemes. Preparedness means reducing the consequences of flooding through public information, planning and emergency response. The OPW plays a key role in co-ordinating measures to meet the Government's national flood risk policy, particularly in relation to flooding from rivers and the sea.

The Government has committed €1.3 billion under the national development plan for flood relief schemes. This investment aims to protect approximately 23,000 properties in communities at significant risk. Since 2018, this funding has allowed the OPW, in partnership with local authorities, to treble its flood relief work. There are now approximately 100 schemes at design, planning or construction stage. There are currently ten flood relief schemes under construction nationwide. These are at Athlone, my hometown; Crossmolina; Glashaboy; King's Island; Morell River; Morrison's Island; Poddle River; River Wad; Templemore and Whitechurch. Once completed, these schemes will protect a further 2,880 properties and deliver an estimated €361 million in avoided damages and losses. Five of these schemes are at an advanced stage, with at least three expected to reach substantial completion in 2026. At the same time, other tranche 1 schemes are being actively progressed through design, planning and construction.

Recent flooding, including during and since Storm Chandra, arose from multiple sources, including rivers and the sea. For communities awaiting major flood relief schemes, I have asked local authorities to identify all possible interim measures to reduce flood risk. I expect to receive these plans in the coming weeks and will update my Government colleagues accordingly. Flood forecasting and warning are critical to preparedness. Stage 1 of the national flood forecasting and warning service was completed in December 2023. A flood forecasting centre is now established in Met Éireann, providing flood forecasts, hydrological data and daily flood guidance to local authorities and State agencies. Stage 2 is now under way and will focus on providing flood warnings directly to communities and improving the detail and accuracy of forecasts. Oversight of this work now sits with the Government task force on emergency planning, chaired by the Department of Defence.

Our climate is changing. We are seeing more frequent storms and extreme weather events. In response, my office has published the Climate Change Sectoral Adaptation Plan for Flood Risk Management 2025-2030. All flood relief schemes now require scheme adaptation plans to ensure they account for climate change impacts and can be adapted to future flood risk.

Nature-based solutions are also being assessed as part of scheme development and through other delivery mechanisms. The OPW is working with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to develop further guidance to ensure planning decisions properly consider flood risk and avoid exposing new developments to future flooding due to climate change.

I thank Deputies for their engagement. I also want to say that a great number of Deputies have great ideas and have said a lot in this debate. Local authorities deliver schemes. I support them financially, so Members should not stand up in this House and try to blame the Government. Local authorities lead and we support. We have never been found wanting with any local authority. The issues are complex. I ask Deputies if they have ever gone out and looked at the development of a scheme and how long it takes. What is involved is enormous. We have the money now to hand and are working with these local authorities. I have introduced interim measures over the past number of months.

Deputy Richard O'Donoghue said there was nothing for channel cleaning or blockages but I announced that funding last October. Local authorities can apply for it to make that work happen. I sincerely thank all the Deputies. People around Ireland have had an awful time over the last number of weeks. I have met some of them and I know what they are experiencing. It is my job, as Minister of State, to lead a whole-of-government approach and help those people in the future.

Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice

I welcome the opportunity to speak in support of this motion. In fairness, money is not a problem but trying to get it done is a problem. The Minister of State, Deputy Moran, and I have been involved with Lough Funshinagh for a number of years. I have seen previous Ministers. What had to be done in Lough Funshinagh was a temporary measure to allow the water to be pumped away. Does the Minister of State know what the reason is? The pipes were three quarters down. Environmentalists brought a case to court. The pipes were to go for about half a mile, then on to a river and out into Lough Ree. At one time, the water from Lough Funshinagh used to go out to Lough Ree underground, but that basically blocked up. We are now faced with the situation where scientific studies lasting for a few years are needed to show that the same water that was going out will not damage some bit of a flower on the edge of Lough Ree because it is going out through the river. No matter who it is, even if I was Minister in the morning, they would pull their hair out. I would not have hair with what I am watching with the habitats directive.

We can talk here and give out about relief jobs not being done. However, at the end of the day, it is about the habitats directive and that legislation needs to be changed when Ireland has the Presidency of the EU. Go to Rossaveal in Connemara, which is the Minister of State, Deputy Grealish's area. There is machinery standing up because of environmental objections and a court case. Go down south to all the schemes. Go to Lough Funshinagh. There was a great story told in Galway where there was a flood on the road. The council went out to let the water go. It was rung and told that it could not let water in there because it was a special area of conservation. We would rather have a car crash than let water go.

We can talk about it here but, at the end of the day, the habitats directive was transposed into law by our now retired President, Michael D. Higgins. We must decide to put people and lives before some of the objections, like in Lough Talt. When Irish Water wanted an extraction licence for Lough Talt, an objection was made because of a snail, even thought the snail had disappeared for over 20 years. We need to amend that legislation. I am not saying the Government will be able to scrap every bit of it. I took part in an overview of it a few years after it. I would have been as well off if I had gone home and counted cattle, to be quite frank about it. I gave my view, and nothing happened. I ask the Government to change that. It is not for Ministers to do. It is going to take the likes of the Taoiseach and Tánaiste when Ireland has the Presidency of the EU for six months. We need to do that. Go to Dublin Port or Dublin Airport and have a look at it. Go to any road job or any flooding job and have a look at it.

I will give an example which shocked me one day. In Clonberne in County Galway, a young couple were building a house. A drain down near the back of the house goes into the Sinking river, heads on through Slieve to Dunmore, goes into another river, heads for Galway and goes into the River Clare and then goes into Lough Corrib. It is 40 miles away from Lough Corrib. Does the Minister of State know what the couple had to do? They had to get a screening out. They spent €2,500 to be told, "By the way, this won't do any harm." That is where we have gone as a country because of European regulation. To be honest about it, if I was the Minister or someone else was Minister, we would still be handcuffed and we would be in the courts down the road because of environmental legislation. Until we decide we are going to sort this out, even if it was God almighty, we will have to go through this process for seven, eight or nine years of torture. When all the reports and everything else have been done, we will still be below in the courts for another few years being held up because someone somewhere believes that the little flower is more important than Mary or Johnny's house getting flooded. Until that mentality changes, we are in trouble.

An Cathaoirleach Gníomhach (Deputy Erin McGreehan)

Before I move on to the next speaker, I welcome the students of St. Kieran's College in Kilkenny. They are very welcome to Leinster House.

Deputy Peadar Tóibín

I thank Deputies for their contributions to this Private Members' motion. I thank the Government for not opposing it. That is important. I thank the Labour Party for its amendment, which we are not opposing. It is a cynical, well-worn experience in this House that the Government does not oppose Private Members' motions but then simply does nothing about them. Accepting a Private Members' motion and not doing anything about it is a good way of saying "Yes" while saying "No" at the same time. That is a problem.

My major worry is that the media will move on from this issue, the political system will then move on from it and-----

Deputy Kevin Boxer Moran

I will not move on from it.

Deputy Peadar Tóibín

-----in 18 months’ time, we will back in the same place, with families being inundated and hammered in this situation. We have had many years of Ministers being dispatched to floods in their top boots, splashing around in the puddles on camera for the media, nodding-----

Deputy Noel Grealish

Not this man, Deputy Moran. He will do his work.

Deputy Peadar Tóibín

-----empathically to families who have lost everything. That has added up to a hill of beans for those families over that period of time.

I accept that the Minister of State, Deputy Moran, wants to get things done. I accept his bona fides in relation this. He has been this position for a year at this point. We have to get to the root of the problem here. The construction of flood defences is drowning in bureaucracy and red tape. Many flood defence planning applications are taking 20 to 30 years, from concept to completion. Enniscorthy, Midleton, Clontarf, Galway, Sandymount and a rake of others have been waiting ten, 20, 30 years just for the planning applications to go in. The issue is that if there is not a fix for this as soon as possible, there will be enormous damage done to those areas.

The Minister of State mentioned 100 projects that are in planning currently. He also defended the role of the planning process. At the heart of the problem is that our planning system and licensing, permitting, tendering and judicial review systems are all demonstrably slower than in the vast majority of other European countries. They are all slower here. That means they are broken and not working in this situation. This is tearing at the fabric of society.

Enniscorthy, which was a lake last week, has been waiting 25 years for a planning application. The M50 is a carpark every single day now because of the planning process difficulties in getting roads and infrastructure built. The national children's hospital was promised by 2020 for €700 million, save an asteroid hitting a planet, according to Leo Varadkar. It is still not open and it is costing €2.25 billion. The Minister of State has to recognise that we have a critical crisis in terms of the building of infrastructure and our planning systems. It is an enormous cost financially and in terms of the services we are not receiving. It has to be fixed soon.

We have to set about dealing with the vexatious objections that come from one end of the country to the other. We have to realise that Ireland is now a judicial review hot spot in terms of higher levels of judicial reviews than practically any other country. They are taking longer. Our courts are not sufficiently staffed. If the Minister of State were to physically attack someone on this side of this House today, it would take longer for him to go through the courts in this country than in practically every other European country. The planning departments in the councils and in An Coimisiún Pleanála do not have enough staff. They have far more planners than they had before, but they still have nowhere near the number of planning staff that they need.

I welcome the Minister of State's view that there is going to be zero tolerance of further development on flood plains in the future. The truth of the matter is that thousands of houses have been built in flood risk areas and flood plains, with the permission of the State and local authorities. As a result, the Government is responsible for the costs to the families when they see their homes flooded. We all saw cars floating in the past week in those floods. That is probably the second most expensive item of expenditure that those families will have in their lives, after the cost of their homes. When they ask the Government for help, it says "No” and that it is not helping with that. We need proper funds to be made available to families and businesses when their homes and businesses are flooded. That needs to happen right now.

Amendment agreed to.

Motion, as amended, agreed to.

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 11 Feb 2026

Flood Prevention: Motion [Private Members]

A Deputy

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 11 Feb 2026