A TD has said that river dredging is needed to tackle flooding, after the River Slaney burst its banks in Enniscorthy and Bunclody, causing devastation to residents and business owners.
It comes in addition to floods and damage from Storm Chandra in other parts of the country.
Enniscorthy has now flooded 16 times since 2001, as residents and businesses claim they have been promised government progress, but deal with the disastrous impacts year after year.
Independent TD Mattie McGrath told Gript that the broader issues relating to rivers need to be discussed, including dredging. He argued that the accumulation of debris in rivers is worsening flooding across the country.
Back in 2020, Mr McGrath was among TDs who asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage at the time, whether sufficient funding would be afforded to local authorities to carry out the work of dredging and clearing rivers of fallen trees and debris, particularly in areas close to bridges to ensure flooding was prevented ahead of the winter season.
‘A NO BRAINER’
The Office of Public Works has statutory responsibility for Drainage Maintenance on water bodies where capital works have been carried out under the Arterial Drainage Acts 1945 and 1995; and for flood risk management in the State.
“Dredging the rivers would cost just a fraction of the flood defence systems being put in place, and could be a solution to the flooding problem in places like Wexford,” said Mc McGrath. “It’s a no brainer, and it’s crazy this isn’t happening.”
Mr McGrath said that whilst the question of river dredging is on the table every year, it is something which is prevented from a legal standpoint as councils legally cannot do these works. Deputy McGrath pointed out that local authorities are only responsible for certain stretches of rivers, when they are drainage districts. In many cases, landowners adjacent to the river are responsible for the maintenance, yet they have to go through the same statutory process as the council when it comes to carrying out the works.
“As we witnessed in Midleton and other areas of the country last year, and repeatedly in Enniscorthy, the problem is going to keep going on. Business people are facing devastation. In Clonmel, we have flood defences and I salute my former colleague, Martin Mansergh, who played a big role in obtaining these defences, which are 90% successful.
“We keep building flood defences and planning them but we refuse to dredge, or clean, our waterways, rivers and ports. The port of Waterford into which the Suir flows used to be cleaned every second year. It is utter folly to be trying to build up defences. Every bit of dirt from this roof and every other roof ends up in the streams and rivers and watercourses.
The sooner we cop on to ourselves, excavate and clean the rivers, the better. It’s utter madness, and rivers will not be able to contain the water unless we clean them,” he said.
“It used to be the case that every pond, small watercourse and stream was physically cleaned with horses and carts. Now, we have every sort of equipment but we can do very little. What’s happening with drainage schemes is ridiculous.”
Opponents of dredging, including representatives from Teagasc, have argued that it is important to get balance, and say that while dredging may improve the flow of water, it damages the habitat that species such as insects and salmon depend on. Opponents also argue it is not as simple as increasing the flow of water.
Earlier this month, a Joint Oireachtas Committee discussing the delivery of the National Development Plan and infrastructure, John Conlon, Chairman of the Office of Public Works (OPW) said that dredging was one of many options to increase channel glow or channel conveyance, and that it was an option looked at to alleviate flooding on all OPW schemes.
During a Dail debate last September, Independent Ireland TD Michael Fitzmaurice disagreed with such criticisms.
“The cleanest river in Ireland is the Islands River. About ten diggers cleaned it 12 to 14 years ago,” he said. “It is one of the best rivers in Ireland. To anyone who talks rubbish about cleaning rivers and says that things will not come back, I say that rivers were cleaned for years and all the different things came back. This myth has to be got rid of. If you do not allow water to flow, you are going to have problems and backlogs.”
Wexford TD for Labour, George Lawlor, meanwhile, told RTE’s The Late Debate that dredging should be an option.
“You also look at things like dredging the River Slaney in Enniscorthy to create a deeper basin. We’ve a problem in Enniscorthy in that the bridge is too low, and that’s creating a damn like effect that is causing major, major difficulties in the area. These are things that have been proposed time and time again, but the will or the ambition isn’t there,” the TD said.
“Why didn’t Labour do it when you were in power?” asked the presenter to which Mr Lawlor responded: “We made the money available to do it, but then we went out of government in less than a year.”