Flood Relief Schemes
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-03
============================================================

Fiona O'Loughlin (FF), Administrative Panel

I thank the Cathaoirleach for choosing the Commencement matter today and I also thank the Minister of State, Deputy Moran, for coming to the Chamber to deal with it, which I greatly appreciate. Today is such a lovely day. It is dry and the skies are blue and we would be forgiven for forgetting all about the really bad weather we had at the start of the year with all of the rain. There is something in us Irish that we tend to be positive and not to look back. However, it is really important that we set everything up and make plans for the potential risk of floods once again.
I want to talk particularly about Newbridge and what is happening there. During the recent floods we were not very badly affected but we were impacted. Four estates in particular were affected, namely, Raymonds Court, Roseberry Court, College Grove and Riverside Park, as well as the Liffey Linear Park, which nobody could use to walk. That park is a really special place in Newbridge for people who want to exercise and immerse themselves in nature but unfortunately it was closed during the floods. I want to give a shout out to the new area engineer in Newbridge, Mr. Carthac de Brí, who was absolutely excellent. Any time I contacted him on behalf of residents in terms of their fears, their need for sandbags and so on, he was absolutely on the ball. It gives great comfort when residents see that preparations are in place at council level.
In terms of the work that needs to be done by the Department, some work has already started on a number of schemes in Kildare. The scheme in Athy is nearly finished and in north Kildare a number of schemes are under way. While flood mapping published by the OPW confirms fluvial flood risk from the River Liffey, including from the Roseberry stream and the Great Connell stream, the biggest issue is actually the controlled discharge operations at Pollaphuca. These operations are managed by the ESB to regulate water levels. To be fair, I want to thank the ESB and its personnel who were at the end of the phone line any time that I contacted them during the flood period. A number of warnings were issued by the ESB about limited reservoir storage capacity during sustained rainfall, which could lead to increased downstream flood risk to both Newbridge and Clane if water had to be released. Newbridge was formally identified as being at risk of river flooding in national plans going back as far as 2018 so in that context, the planned works should be scheduled in the more immediate term. We have already waited eight years. Given the way climate change trends are going, there is also a need for improved monitoring. A number of councillors, including Councillor Robert Power and the mayor of Newbridge, Councillor Carmel Kelly, have called for electronic water level monitoring stations to be installed in Newbridge and Clane. The flood works are at development stage but are not yet at the construction phase.
When will we get a confirmed date for construction to commence?

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-03-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:42+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-03