Flood Relief - Problems and Solutions

The issues with flooding are massive, some are down to fundamentally corrupt planning decisions that allowed housing to be put where it never should have been, but some is down to the (criminal) underfunding of local authorities over decades, which resulted in a complete lack of supervision and oversight of developers, and no resources on the ground to make sure that things were done in accordance with regulations and approvals.

That meant that they got away with putting storm water into sewers, saving themselves on the cost of a second water movement system, or things like ground levels were not correctly enforced, or bridges, pipes and culverts were undersized, or small streams that pass through residential estates were not piped at all, and now get used as a quick, cheap and easy way to get rid of grass cuttings, tree prunings and other inappropriate domestic waste that then causes massive problems further downstream when it becomes jammed or lodged in a grid or pipe, and causes massive local issues.

Then there are significant issues with the bad and inadequate design of the infrastructure that deals with storm water in residential and commercial areas, and we've seen plenty of examples of this in recent times at places like Dundrum, among others.

Then there is the incredible problem of responsibility and accountability, which doesn't exist in local authorities, no matter how badly they deal with infrastructure issues, no one has every been fired or removed from post for these failings, despite the massive human cost and trauma that is the result of such incompetence and inadequacies. The usual way that incompetents are dealt with in public service is by promoting them sideways into a "new" department, and we've seen the result of that over the last few decades, and it's not pretty!

I will put this very clearly into the public domain, I have nothing but total contempt for a significant number of the full time administrators of Meath County Council, who have repeatedly refused to adequately engage with me to deal with a problem of a sewer that crosses the line of a river, and acts as a dam, the issue has existed since the early 1990's, so over 20 years on, the problem is still there, and has now resulted in our house being flooded on 3 occasions, 2000, 2002 and 2014. The sewer did NOT conform to the requirements laid down by OPW in 1987, but despite regular letters, meetings and pressure through local councillors, they have done NOTHING. It's now even more complex, as Irish Water are now in the loop, as they are "responsible" for sewers, but getting them to respond is even more difficult that getting Meath County Council to respond.

Now, we're also facing into changes in the climate, with more frequent and significantly heavier rainfall that causes surges and rapid rises in levels.

There are some flooding issues that cannot be easily dealt with, no matter how much money is thrown at the problem, and there are many others that could be relatively easily dealt with if the funding was put in place, and the right decisions were made about how water courses in urban areas were dealt with. Be under no illusions, the deficit in spending goes back decades, and there is then the fundamental issue that dealing with issues like flooding is not on the agenda for most politicians, as the results of such massive spending will most likely not gain them any political advantage in the polls and at the next election, so it's completely off their radar, the only thing that might change that will be the pressures from EU legislators, as they seem to be more aware and proactive in facing up to flooding problems.

There are then other issues, which will have to be faced fair and full on, there are things like ancient bridges that are now not fit for purpose due to changes that have happened upstream, and they cause problems when high volumes of water can't get through, and it is no longer acceptable to have people's lives disrupted or their houses damaged because An Taisce or similar want to preserve "our heritage".

Yes, I'm vocal on this issue, when you've sat on the stairs in your house, and seen a brand new carpet destroyed before it had even been walked on, and realised that the problem could have been solved by the local authority, that tends to generate some very strong emotions. The psychological stress and trauma of dealing with flooding cannot be described, and no matter how long you spend trying to deal with it, those pressures don't go away, every time there's heavy rain, a decent night's sleep becomes difficult, as there's always that doubt in the back of your mind that no matter how good the protections that you've put in place are, they might not be enough.

We've spent thousands of Euro trying to ensure that we don't get yet more damage going forward, in the absence of action from the people that should have been dealing with it, the ONLY redeeming feature is that after the most recent flood in our area last year, MCC have been forced to get consultants in to review "our" river, as it caused more widespread damage to houses and business premises, so they can no longer hope the problem will go away. What's sickening is that they were clearly warned in 2003 that if they allowed development downstream from us, it would make the problems worse, and 12 years down the line, that was exactly what happened.

The big issues with this are that there are too many agencies involved. Irish Water, the local authorities and OPW are all implicated, and in some cases, there are then others, like ESB or specific drainage management authorities, and getting them to coordinate action is a bit like herding cats, it doesn't happen.

Then there are "issues" with things like maintenance of water courses. Small channels used to be cleared by a group of staff walking the line, but that's no longer permitted, so they are supposed to use machines to do the work, but there are many places where it's not possible to get machines in to the channel to clear it, and as time goes on, they are becoming increasingly overgrown and obstructed, making the problem worse than it already is. and in a lot of cases the only solution will be to completely pipe such channels so that they no longer require any maintenance, but getting funding for that type of work is going to be a nightmare.

I'm under no illusions, the issues of flood management are going to be a very large item on the agenda going forward, and it will be a brave politician or party that faces up to the cost and implications of properly dealing with it, I suspect it might not happen in my lifetime, given how much of a hot potato this issue is.