Flood Relief Schemes Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-03 ============================================================ Kevin Boxer Moran (IND), Longford-Westmeath I thank Senator O'Loughlin. She has been on to me a lot in relation to the issues in Kildare and I appreciate the work she is doing to help with what I am trying to do. I did outline to her that the pilot scheme is there but I have also said that the minor works are a way forward. Interim and short-term measures play into the long-term solution. I have been doing this up and down the country. I appeal to the Senator again to go back to the local authorities, where interim works can be carried out to mitigate against flooding, particularly in the context of what we have seen with climate change and the areas the Senator mentioned. I appeal to her to go to the local authorities. I have met, I think, eight local authorities in the past two days and I have been pushing them in that direction. The long-term scheme, particularly the scheme the Senator is talking about, is down the track. It will not happen today or tomorrow. That scheme is made available to the local authorities. The change I have made to that scheme in going from €750,000 to €2 million is significant and that is for the local authorities. I want to praise, as the Senator rightly said, the engineer and the local authorities. I have been working closely with every local authority, including Kildare. I met some of the team recently. It is not that I have not been aware of the issues there; I am quite clear on them. As regards the measures the Senator talked about, they will be looked at by me and Kildare County Council in the short term. --- 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