Climate change is here, and we are seeing what it looks like. This is the beginning of it, unfortunately, with the changing weather patterns that we have been seeing in the past few years. Flood relief schemes are taking from 13 to 20 years, which is too long, to put in place. The Mountmellick and Portarlington schemes have been planned since 2017. People in the two towns are on high alert the whole time. Homes on Manor Road were flooded again in recent months. Botley Lane in Portarlington gets flooded, and there is extensive flooding in other parts of the town. Residents are on edge. The progress on both schemes, which are now nine years old, is way too slow. Planning and construction are taking too long. The completion date for those who are centrally involved in the Mountmellick scheme will at best be 2030 or 2032, and maybe even longer. For Portarlington, it is anywhere between 2030 and 2034, which is 17 or 18 years after the scheme was conceived. We agree with what is proposed in the motion, except for the seventh point. I would say to Aontú, in the context of taking it away from local authorities, that it actually goes to An Coimisiún Pleanála. It did not go to the local authorities in the context of any of the schemes I have seen. We need to give local authorities more power and a greater role. We need to devolve more powers to them. That is exactly the problem we have because local authorities do not have sufficient staff and powers to deal with these matters. The various studies and reports on ecology, hydrology, archaeology and habitats are taking far too long, as are the public consultations and EIAs. They need to happen in tandem, not consecutively. That is the message I would give to the Minister of State.

Sentiment score: 0.11