Legislation that will lead to the establishment of a statutory agency that will coordinate and manage the response to flooding along the River Shannon catchment area is expected to be published by the summer.
The River Shannon Management Agency Bill has been included on the government’s Priority Legislation list.
This is positive news for hundreds of farmers, rural communities, towns and businesses severely impacted by devastating floods over the years.
River Shannon flood prevention
The bill will pave the way for the creation of a statutory agency, within the Office of Public Works, that will deal solely with flood risk-management actions and activities in the River Shannon catchment area.
The new agency will coordinate the work of key stakeholders involved in the management and maintenance of the River Shannon, as well as flood-prevention efforts, including the ESB, local authorities, the National Parks and Wildlife Services and other stakeholders.
It will ensure that there is consultation and communication between these key stakeholders.
The bill must now go before both houses of the Oireachtas but within three months of the agency’s establishment, it must provide a ‘Strategic Plan for Flood Prevention in the River Shannon’ to the Minister for Finance.
This plan must then be brought before the Dáíl and Seanad within 28 days of being received by the minister.
Flooding issue – a priority
Minister of State and Fianna Fáil TD for Galway East, Anne Rabbitte told Agriland that this was a priority issue in government-formation talks last year.
“Someone asked me if this legislation will have teeth,” she said.
“That is the whole point of a statutory body. We are putting this in legislation in order to to give it the teeth it needs because we have seen what has been going on for donkeys years.
“I, along with many other TDs live along the Shannon. I’m in Portumna and I saw the impact of Storm Desmond in 2015. That was my baptism of fire.
“Back then, it closed the N65, which has 4,500 cars driving through Portumna on a daily basis. It cut off our economics. And it was within millimeters of flooding houses in Portumna. That was the business and residential side of it.
“But the devastating effect that it had on farmers was seen when they were forced to swim their cattle out of their sheds.
“So we need to be able to prevent this hardship, we need the tools to do it, and that is through a statutory process.
Minister Rabbitte hopes that the bill will facilitate a review of old legislation that dates from 1934 and relates to the setting of water levels along the Shannon by the ESB.
“A lot has happened in that time, but we have never addressed the legislative framework on which Ardnacrusha was built. So, we still hold the same water levels today as then.
“What we are also discovering now is that not only have we the usual winter flooding, but now we have summer flooding, which is impacting farmers who have rented a bit of land to get that cut of silage to bolster their feeding.
“These farmers have been impacted over the last three summers.”
This River Shannon Management Agency Bill is a preventative action that will focus on the management of people and organisations, according to Minister Rabbitte.
“The farmers have been calling for this, businesses have been calling for this, residents have been calling for this. We have groups up and down the length and breadth of the Shannon looking for this,” said the minister.
ESB
Commenting on the bill, the ESB told Agriland:
“The management of flood risk on the River Shannon is currently led by the Office of Public Works, through the Shannon Flood Risk State Agency Coordination Group.
“ESB shares its expertise with all agencies on the group and other stakeholders, and will continue to do so as legislation evolves.”