Michael Fitzmaurice: Bureaucracy is blocking flood relief works

First of all, flooding is a fairly complicated scenario. It might look simple and it might look devastating for families, but there are a lot of different parts to this. The first thing we need to understand, especially in towns, when Dublin started there were a certain amount of pipes put in. There were a certain size of 12-inch or 14-inch or 18-inch. Then we decided to build more houses and that is good. Then we built more buildings. Then that same pipe had to take another drop of water coming from the next estate and it had to keep going on and going on and going on. No more than what you can put into your mouth sooner or later, it won't all fit in when you go eating something. You have to do it in proportion. That is one section. The other part is cleaning out gullies and all of that. First of all, flooding is caused by a simple thing of gullies not cleaned. In relation to, and I want to say it to the Minister, the Shannon there or the River Sook, I want to thank you for a liaison with me there in the last few weeks. In relation to drains, that is the next section we go to. I remember when you can clean a drain and make a drain and do everything with the drain. Now, a farmer is afraid to make it because they are afraid of someone coming from the fisheries or if they come from the fisheries or the department or whatever, saying that you cannot make this drain. The councils were making a certain amount of drains or doing a certain amount, but now they are gone in a way that if there is a bush here, they will go every side of the bush bare and remove the bush. And that bush might be only 15 or 20 years growing because of what we call a sucker in the line of a small little tree. But if you do not keep that maintained, the drain or river, well then you are going to cause problems because it builds up. Let us be clear, you will get a certain amount of materials going on it and you will have to clean it, but it is not being done. And there is a problem because nearly everyone wants to stop you now from doing everything at the moment. And if that happens, with the areas we have at the moment, it is going to be worse down the road if we do not get that system in place. Everyone looks at the OPW. The OPW are one part of it in the line. You have the councils that have to do their bids. You have the likes Irish water that needs to look at the pipes that were put in years ago to take the storm waters. And these are sort of giant up thinking that needs to take place. And then in the bigger rivers you have the likes of inland fisheries or inland waterways, and you have the fisheries and you have the MPWS. And now it has gone to a stage that in some cases the right hand do not know what the left is doing because everyone is saying to stop it. And we need to get collaborative thinking as it has been said earlier by TDR. And when we are doing this, we need to look at how we can speed it up. And like I have said here before, if I was the Minister, I have to be honest and say, with rules and regulations that are in front of you now, the amount of reports and rubbish, I'd call it, that you need, because of European legislation, I'm going to be very blunt about it. And we have left a door open to these people that want to see nothing happening in a country to shoot down to the forecourts and try and block you. And that's not acceptable. Because if a Minister is trying to get works done, it is a cruel thing to see the likes of the job being blocked over, look at you, go to Cunnamara at the moment, look at Rossaville, where we're trying to deepen a port. Blocked. Why? Because it's gone to the courts. And go around the country and look at that. That's not tolerable. And I've said it time and time again. We've played into the hands of these people that don't want to see progress. And until we change some of this, we're going to be in trouble. And at the moment, I remember years ago, we were down in Crossamalina years ago. I think that job has been done now, isn't it, Minister? And that could have been, was it 2016 or something, we were down there. But it's seven or eight years it has taken to get all the paperwork right and to get that job rolling. And to be great for those people when it's done. The relief you see on people. And some people you'll hear, some people say, oh, I should have built in a floodplain. Well, if it was built 100 or 200 years ago or 300 years ago on a floodplain, we're hardly going to tell them to move on to another place. You have to put in the measures to try and resolve the issue for the people at hand. At Lone, a perfect example. And go to different parts of the country. And what you do, and when those measures are put in, they're successful. And we have to just think, and everyone should think. I look at Loch Funchen in Ruscommon. And I saw what really, really good people had to go through in that area. I looked out a window one day, and to the top of my head, the water was up higher on the fair side of the road. That's frightening for any person. And those good people, they live an ordinary life. They don't want to be saying anything or shouting or running, but the reality is that if that bank busted the fair side, they were in trouble. And in fairness, pumps has been put in, an interim measure has been done, but we need to get long-term solutions. Not a loan there. I'm not talking about, I don't do my backdoor stuff all, but we need to get it in all the different parts. But it needs a myriad of giant up thinking. Speeding up, and to be quite blunt about it, sometimes councils could be offered the money, but they don't want to put in the G up in trying to get it done. And that needs to be done as well. There's no point in saying it doesn't. It's not a one-fit solution or one thing will solve it all. But what we need to do is work collaboratively together. And to be quite frank about it, in most cases, it's not money, which is an unusual thing to say in here. That's the problem. It's the paperwork, the bureaucracy, the blocking by outside interests. And you know, I would say to those people today, have a thing to yourself. Would you like your mother or your father or your brother or your sister to be looking out what I'm after talking, I'm over six foot, look out a window and see the water higher than the house that you were born and bred and reared in, or the house that you built? Is that what Irish people are about, that wants to go, you know, down to the forecourse there and go blocking jobs? We should have respect for everyone in this country. And we should have respect for those people that are in situations where the state is willing to help them, but someone comes along in their own interest and goes blocking them. Thank you.