2025-12-17

The Minister of State, Deputy Moran, will know that I live by a lovely beach at Rossbeigh in south Kerry. The Minister of State did us the honour of visiting us on his second last trip to Kerry. We are plagued by coastal erosion, storms and damage to our coastline. Since the Minister of State was down with us, we have had a high tide and the public road down by the beach was closed off for a number of days. If we do not get funding fairly soon the play area, including the playground and the tennis court, will be damaged yet again. I ask that the Minister of State would assist Kerry County Council with funding to strengthen the works there and to carry out additional works. On that same day the Minister of State also visited Cromane, a five-minute drive from Rossbeigh, where he met a number of local families whose homes have been subject to flooding. As I keep saying, there is a big difference between rainwater flooding and seawater flooding. It is a different ball game when you have the Atlantic Ocean inside your home. I have witnessed a number of occasions when there has been 3 ft of salt water inside people's homes. Once a place has been flooded it is absolutely impossible to get insurance again. The people there, the residents of Cromane Lower, are living on edge every time there is a high tide. Where the problem really lies is when it coincides with a storm. Our storms are getting more frequent and urgent action is required. The residents cannot sleep in their beds when there are high tides. I plead with the Minister of State again today to come to the assistance and to the rescue of the residents of Cromane Lower. The same applies to Glosha, which is in Cromane as well. Going back the road from Glenbeigh to Cahersiveen there is Whitestrand Beach over the water from Cahersiveen. It is subject to continuous erosion. The public toilets are in danger of being washed away. I ask that emergency funding be made available there. Back along the Ring of Kerry road towards Waterville, there is a huge problem with coastal erosion. Submissions have been made regarding Waterville as well. Again, I ask that funding be made available. Regarding Glenbeigh, just a mile from Rossbeigh beach the Minister of State met with residents of Incheraigh. Their homes were flooded. They spent an absolute fortune over the years. They came up here to see a predecessor of the Minister of State, the current Tánaiste, Simon Harris, when he was Minister of State with responsibility for the Office of Public Works. They were pleading for funding and were successful on that occasion. The embankment there was in the charge of the old Land Commission. This is a grey area. Historically, the residents would pay an annual fee to the Land Commission and in return it would carry out emergency protection works. That scheme should be reintroduced because they are in no man's land. There are other big schemes. I thank the Minister of State for the funding he has announced. He was in Listowel, which is a massive scheme. I congratulate the Office of Public Works and, indeed, Kerry County Council for the tremendous work they did there. There are other schemes in Tralee, Killarney and Kenmare. The Minister of State is very familiar with these, and he is very much on top of his brief, to be fair. I commend him on his interest and on what he is doing. I hope the Government gives him more funding to carry out all these works.

I thank Deputy Cahill for raising this important matter. I am very familiar with the coastal erosion and flooding issues in County Kerry, having visited twice this year. Coastal erosion and localised flooding issues are a matter, in the first instance, for every local authority to investigate and address. Local authorities can undertake these works with their own resources. In 2009, the Office of Public Works, OPW, introduced the minor flood mitigation works and coastal protection scheme. The purpose of the scheme is to provide 90% funding to local authorities to undertake studies on coastal erosion and minor flood mitigation works within their administrative areas. This minor works scheme generally applies where a solution can be readily identified and achieved, and the costs do not exceed €750,000. Applications under the scheme are assessed by the OPW having regard to specific economic, technical, social and environmental criteria set out in the scheme. To be approved for funding under the scheme, these benefits from the works must exceed their associated costs. To date, nationally, the OPW has approved over €70 million for over 900 unique local flood relief and coastal projects that are providing benefits to some 8,000 properties. Since 2009, the OPW has approved some €4.2 million in funding to Kerry County Council for some 40 projects. Some €2.9 million of this approved funding relates to coastal erosion works and studies. Under the minor works scheme, it is the responsibility of the local authority to advance the works, once approved by the OPW. This includes all environmental assessments, planning consents, health and safety requirements and landowner agreements. I recently announced revisions to this minor works scheme, including an increase in the maximum funding under the scheme to €2 million. My office is finalising the details of these revisions, and I expect to announce these details shortly. The OPW is also funding three local authority staff in Kerry County Council - a senior executive engineer, executive engineer and a senior staff member - to manage the delivery of these flood relief schemes.

I was co-opted onto Kerry County Council in January 1990 following the untimely passing of my father. My very first motion was in regard to coastal erosion. That day I referenced Rossbeigh and Cromane. It is ironic that I am speaking all these years later about the same areas. I acknowledge the money that has been spent over the years, but we are talking about now. We are talking about the present and the future. It is like the old saying that a stitch in time saves nine. Again, I am pleading with the Minister of State to allocate the necessary funding to Kerry County Council. We have a proven track record in the quality of the work along with the Minister of State's colleagues in the OPW. I want to emphasise that because I have seen their projects first hand and how good the completed project is. The businesses in Killorglin town along the River Laune are subject to tidal flooding and they are living in fear as well. It is a huge problem, not just in Kerry but nationally. There is an urgent need for funding to be made available. I ask the Government to make additional funding available to the Minister of State's Department because I know he will spend it, and it will be spent properly. I thank the Minister of State for his work. The top priority in Kerry - this is coming up at every single meeting of Kerry County Council and I have raised it here - is the residents of Cromane. They will have to relocate if they do not get help now. The damage this does is accompanied by fear and anxiety. Paschal Sheehy has covered the flooding in Cromane live on national television. I want to make sure that does not happen again and the only way that will be resolved is by funding being provided for the locations I have mentioned.

I fully appreciate where the Deputy is coming from. When I visited Kerry, I saw this issue at first hand and I spoke to the residents who are badly affected by it. I have set out the changes I have brought about in the minor works scheme to go from €750,000 to €2 million. It is not about the money; it is about the local authorities coming up with a scheme. I encourage the Deputy, as I encouraged other Members yesterday in the House, to go back to his local authority. We are funding staff to the local authorities. We encourage them to come up with a scheme. It has to be driven by the local authority. It is not driven by the Government or by the OPW. We fund the local authorities. If the local authority comes into my Department with a scheme and it meets the criteria, we will fund it. I do not want to see people in Kerry or any other part of the country suffering. Since I have taken up this role we are at a maximum. We have never seen the like of it spent before. That is €102 million with regard to flooding. We have 100 schemes at various stages taking place at present. That has never happened. That is the positivity that is happening within the Government but the people that Deputy Cahill represents feel we are not getting to them or reaching out to them. I encourage the Deputy to go back to the local authority. He has seen what we have done in Listowel. We went down. There was an issue and we moved with the local authorities. We saw the results of that when we saw the finished work. I want to work with Deputy Cahill, I want to work with the local authorities but most of all I want to work with the residents. I appeal to Deputy Cahill to go back to the local authority and sit down with the engineers to see whether a minor works or interim measures project can be done from an engineering point of view for the people the Deputy spoke about so eloquently. I will support them 100%. I do not want people to say that they need extra money but the Government is not delivering. It is not that. I have the money. I have a huge budget for flooding. The Government is very driven because we know what coastal erosion is doing now. Just out the road in Portrane, we have to try to deal with a very delicate situation over the next couple of days. I will work with Deputy Cahill going forward but I ask him to go back to the local authority and see if they can come up with a scheme.