merrion street

Minister Seán Canney TD , Minister of State with special responsibility for the Office of Public Works and Flood Relief today (3 June) welcomed his first meeting with the members of the Interdepartmental Flood Policy Co-Ordination Group whom he met yesterday 2 June 2016.

The Group, which is chaired by Minister Canney, has membership from the following Departments: Departments of Finance; Public Expenditure and Reform; Housing, Planning and Local Government; Regional Development, Rural Affairs, Arts and the Gaeltacht; Agriculture, Food and Marine; Defence; Social Protection and the OPW. The role of the Group is to have a whole of Government approach to the issue of Flood Policy; to cover issues which are outside the scope of the responsibility of the OPW and to report on non-structural solutions that will inform the OPW ten year implementation plan.

Speaking today, Minister Canney said:” I am delighted to have been appointed by the Taoiseach as Minister of State for the Office of Public Works and Flood Relief. The Taoiseach and the Partnership Government has afforded a significant importance to flood relief in the new Government. We recognise that the recent flooding has been extremely difficult for many communities across the country. To that end the Programme for Government sets out a number of key actions and activities to be attained during the lifetime of this Government. I and my colleagues in Government are committed to ensuring that the National Flood Risk Management Plan through its flood mitigation initiatives will protect as many communities as possible from flood risk in the years ahead. These initiatives will be underpinned by significant investment of €430million over the next five years”.
The Minister was updated by each Department on its progress on a range of policy issues towards the finalisation of the report which will be presented to the appropriate Cabinet Committee at the end of this month. Minister Canney concluded “As I have stated, this is a priority area for the Taoiseach and I will be reporting in the coming days on progress to the end of June deadline to the appropriate Cabinet Committee. I look forward to receiving the finalised report in the coming weeks”.

Notes to Editors:

Non-structural policy issues to be addressed can be categorised into those that: 

• can directly assist communities and people to be prepared and respond to floods (flood forecasting and community resilience), and
• strategic policies that impact on people's risk to and experience of dealing with flood risks (such as insurance and planning regulations).