Flood Relief Schemes
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-12
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Kevin Boxer Moran (IND), Longford-Westmeath

To identify communities that are at risk from significant flood events, the OPW completed the largest study of flood risk ever undertaken by the State in 2018. The OPW catchment-based flood risk assessment and management, CFRAM, programme was undertaken by engineers and consultants on behalf of the OPW, working in partnership with the local authorities. The CFRAM programme studied 80% of Ireland’s primary flood risk and identified solutions that can protect over 95% of those at risk. A series of 29 flood risk management plans were launched in May 2018, providing the evidence base for required flood relief schemes. These plans are available on www.floodinfo.ie.
The Government has committed €715 million to the delivery of these flood relief schemes under the National Development Plan 2026-2030. Since 2018, as part of a phased approach to scheme delivery, the funding has allowed the OPW to treble the number of flood relief schemes at design, planning or construction stage to some 100 schemes. Today, work to protect 80% of all at-risk properties nationally is completed or under way. The first tranche of new schemes identified in the flood risk management plans includes some 60 schemes that were prioritised, along with schemes already under way. The prioritisation of the first tranche of schemes was based on three criteria, namely, scale of projects, capacity to deliver the national development programme and the maximisation of return for investment in respect of property numbers.
Flood relief schemes are complex, multi-annual civil engineering projects and take some 11 years to deliver, which include bringing a scheme through development, planning, design, procurement and construction. The current position with regard to flood relief schemes is as follows: the OPW has invested some €580 million in 56 completed schemes that are providing protection to some 13,580 properties.
The economic benefit to the State from loss avoided is estimated to be in the region of €2 billion. There are currently ten relief schemes that will protect over 2,800 properties on completion.

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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/dail/2026-02-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:02+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-12