I propose to take Questions Nos. 17, 48 and 56 together.
I am acutely aware of the significant impact of flood events on communities and have seen at first hand the impact of flooding on people, their homes, and their businesses across Ireland.
The preparations for, and the response to, major emergencies is a matter for the Principal Response Agencies – Local authorities, An Garda Síochána, and the HSE. Local authorities are the ‘lead agency’ for response to flooding events within their administrative areas. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, through its National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management, is designated as the Lead Government Department with responsibility for co-ordinating the national level response to weather emergencies, including flooding.
The Interdepartmental Flood Policy Co-ordination Group, which is chaired by the OPW, is co-ordinating Ireland’s whole of Government approach to flood risk management across three strategic policy pillars, which encompass a broad range of structural and non-structural measures:
• Prevention: e.g. avoiding construction in flood-prone areas,
• Protection: e.g. taking feasible measures, both structural and non-structural, to reduce the likelihood and impact of floods, and
• Preparedness: e.g. informing the public about dealing with flood risk and a flood.
Through this structure, the relevant Government Departments and other agencies are working together towards the delivery of the Government’s national flood policy. As the approach taken by the Group is sector led, the individual members each take responsibility for reviewing and developing further policy initiatives within their sector’s specialised area of responsibility with the sector-led policy initiatives being co-ordinated through the Group.
The OPW is leading an ambitious national programme to protect against risk from river and coastal flooding. Nationally, significant progress has been made. To date, the OPW has invested some €580m in 56 completed flood relief schemes, which protect 13,580 properties nationwide and provide an economic benefit in damages avoided estimated to be in the region of €2bn.
The Catchment Flood Risk Assessment and Management (CFRAM) Programme provided the Government with the evidence necessary to launch a national programme of flood relief schemes in 2018. Investment through the National Development Plan, and working in partnership with the local authorities, has allowed the OPW to treble the number of flood relief schemes at design, planning, or construction to some 100 schemes. Thus, delivery of flood relief schemes is occurring at a significant scale nationally. The objective is the management of significant flood risk, with schemes being designed and built to a standard that protects areas against a 1 in 100-year flood event – and coastal areas against a 1 in 200-year flood event. Such events have a significant impact, and the term 1 in 100-year flood means there is a 1% chance of them occurring in any single year.
The OPW strives to expedite and progress capital flood relief works with the minimum delay. Nonetheless, the process is lengthy and detailed and follows a number of stages from feasibility through design, planning, detailed design, construction, and handover.
Any flood relief scheme needs to map and to understand the locations at risk of flooding and the flooding sources and constraints. This is achieved by extensive and wide-ranging surveys to understand the topography, hydrology, and environment of a community. Detailed technical analysis is required to establish the most appropriate solution, technically and environmentally, from a range of possible design options. Throughout all stages of the process, public consultation and detailed assessments of the environmental impacts are key to informing the design of a flood relief scheme for a community. The OPW and local authorities do not have powers to expedite schemes arising from the damage caused by flooding events, and the delivery of all schemes must meet both regulatory and planning requirements.
The stages and rigour adopted by the OPW to completing a scheme takes, by its nature, some 11 years to bring a scheme through design, planning, development, procurement, and construction. Overall, project delivery is a sequential process, with relevant work being progressed as efficiently as possible. For example, detailed design may commence while a scheme is going through the planning process. Where project studies and deliverables may be progressed concurrently, the OPW and its partners avail of every opportunity to do so.
The OPW and its delivery partners continually seek to enhance the delivery model for future flood relief schemes, with new approaches regularly being tested or trialled. A number of strategies and initiatives are in place or underway to facilitate this. Through Project Steering Groups and other mechanisms, the OPW and its delivery partners are constantly monitoring, knowledge-sharing, and enhancing the approach to improve the delivery of flood relief projects. The OPW is piloting a new delivery model for flood relief schemes through four Tranche 2 schemes in counties Kilkenny and Donegal. The Tranche 2 Pilot will transfer the management of data gathering, as a first step in designing a scheme, from consultant engineers for a single scheme to the local authorities for all schemes in the Pilot and, where feasible, within their areas of responsibility. The Pilot means that data gathering may be scaled up from individual communities to all schemes in a county.
