Plan for new expert team to tackle flooding in Cork county held up by red tape, councillors told
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The planned creation of a new "dedicated" team in Cork county to tackle flooding is being held up by Office of Public Works (OPW) red tape.
Despite promises of Government funding for the move, Cork County Council is still awaiting approval from the OPW to finance its team of experts.
Council chief executive Valerie O’Sullivan said the council was hoping for promised funding to create the positions from the OPW Minister Patrick O’Donovan, but admitted there had been delays in getting it signed-off by Government.
She said following serious flooding during last October’s Storm Babet, which caused multi-million euro damage, the council decided it was time to create its own dedicated team to deal with such incidents.
On foot of "positive talks" with Mr O’Donovan, the council submitted its plans to the OPW, but they came back with a number of queries “which the council addressed” and the local authority is still “awaiting final approval” for financing the specialist team it wants to put in place.
Ms O’Sullivan added council-controlled fire brigades, who are the frontline "on-the-ground personnel" for dealing with weather events, are constantly advising and updating other council staff “about any lessons learned” which will enhance future responses to such events.
She maintained local authorities should be given greater autonomy to deal with flood issues on the ground, rather than wait for various Government departments and other agencies to react.
Ms O’Sullivan also said considering the huge amount of damage caused in recent years across the county by floods, it would be far cheaper to build defences now than wait for the State (insurance companies etc) to pay out compensation to victims.
“It’s time to get on with it. We’re agents for the OPW. We’re only interested in delivery and getting on with it,” she said.
Ms O’Sullivan was responding to a motion by Midleton-based Social Democrats councillor Liam Quaide, who claimed the only way to solve flooding was to create "a whole-of-Government strategy" like the one once led by a Cabinet sub-committee for the covid pandemic.
He was backed by colleagues when he called for “a wider agency to co-ordinate all the entities involved in managing flood risk and responses to flood events” to govern the OPW, local authorities, Department of Environment, Uisce Éireann, Inland Fisheries Ireland and Coillte.
“If we had one agency with the power to lead we'd see better co-ordination, speed and efficiency with all aspects of flood management,” Mr Quaide said.
"There's a need on climate change for a 'whole-of-government strategy' as on the covid pandemic, led by a Cabinet sub-committee which received regular updates from Nphet so it has Cabinet leadership with constant input from an expert panel of stakeholders and experts in the field.”
Mr Quaide insisted also on a need a "one-stop-shop system" to deal with issues such as insurance, financial supports and individual property protection.
Midleton-based Fine Gael councillor Susan McCarthy, a victim of last October's flood, said the town was also hit in 2016 and “the creation of a multi-disciplinary response to more extreme weather would future-proof our response going forward”.
The council is to write to all political party leaders seeking the creation of an umbrella body to coordinate climate change issues.