Catherine Connolly TD expresses serious concern over unacceptable delays in the delivery of the Coirib go Cósta Galway City Flood Relief Scheme
Deputy Catherine Connolly said that the ongoing delays in the delivery of the revised programme for the Coirib go Cósta Galway City Flood Relief Scheme are a cause for serious concern and must be addressed as a matter of urgency.
In response to Deputy Connolly’s most recent parliamentary question on the matter, Minister of State with responsibility for the Office of Public Works Patrick O’Donovan stated that details of the revised programme, which has been under review for over a year now due to the increase in scale of the scheme, will be published in the coming weeks. The original timeline given for publication of the revised programme was Q1 2023, almost a year ago.
The flood relief scheme aims to protect 940 properties in the Long Walk, Spanish Arch, Eglinton Canal, Merchants Quay, Raven Terrace, Salthill and Claddagh areas. It has a preliminary total programme budget of €9.5 million and was initially promised for completion in 2029. However, following hydrological and hydraulic modelling for the scheme, it became clear in January 2023 that significantly more defences would be required.
As part of the original Coirib go Cósta plan, there were to be 3 public consultation days throughout the project. Just one has taken place to date, in June 2021. In his response to the parliamentary question, Minister of State O’Donovan confirmed that the second public consultation day is expected in Q4 2024 – three and a half years after the first.
Deputy Connolly, who has been putting regular parliamentary questions to the Minister on the matter, pointed to the severity of the flooding caused by Storm Debi in November 2023, which resulted in extensive damage across Galway City and County, as well as other parts of the country. Given the destruction caused by recent storms and the ongoing delay in the delivery of the Coirib go Cósta project, Deputy Connolly called on the Government to show more ambition, to publish the revised plan and to implement the necessary flood defences in Galway city as a matter of urgency.
ENDS
