Noel Dempsey: Decades of policy failures led to flooding crisis

There are two major policy reasons for the current flooding – a failure of our planning policy over the past half-century and a policy failure in responding adequately to the threat of climate change over the last two decades.

It is a bit ironic, therefore, to see politicians scrambling to show their concern for the latest victims of floods when much of the devastation could have been avoided by prompt political actions in the past.

The response from the highest levels of Government to the results of COP21 in Paris show the political attitude to long-term problems such as this remains the same: keep your head buried in the sand until you have no alternative.

Flooding is a natural phenomenon and cannot be entirely avoided. However, what must surely add to the trauma of many of the victims is the thought that it might have been totally avoided if proper planning and development policies had been in place or implemented in some of the places recently flooded.

Our planning and development system was formally put in place in 1963 with the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act. Flooding was included in it as a non-compensatable reason for refusing a planning application.

This meant if a local authority refused planning permission and cited the threat of flooding as a reason, the applicant had no grounds for claiming compensation for that refusal.The inclusion of this section shows there was an awareness of flooding as an issue for consideration in deciding planning applications.

Engineering solutions

Following this there is little evidence that flood risk was a major consideration in planning decisions until the late 1990s. In the interim the attitude to flooding seems to have been largely based on the belief that it could be managed by “engineering solutions”. It is clear this ad hoc approach has led to flooding elsewhere in river catchments.

Since the late 1990s there has been a growing recognition at “official” levels of national and local government of the problem and risk of flooding even if that is not always reflected at political levels. At least eight policy documents have been produced since 1997. Prior to 2004 the lack of definitive information on flood plains and areas at risk presented an added difficulty for planners who wanted to refuse zoning or planning in those areas. In many instances it was one person’s word against another. As a result of the potential financial losses to landowners, local authorities and local representatives erred on the side of the landowner.

National Flood Policy

This changed in 2004 with the report of the Flood Policy Review Group led by the Office of Public Works. This gave definitive reliable information on areas at risk and led to the National Flood Policy.

In 2009, section 28 of the 2000 Planning Act was used to issue guidelines on flood-risk management in planning. These guidelines are regarded as among the best in Europe and they are robustly policed by the Department of the Environment.

This policing, sadly, is still essential as many local authorities seem to have learned little from past mistakes, judging by the number of times the Minister has had to intervene with local politicians and local authorities under section 31 of the 2000 Planning Act. The latter allows the Minister to issue directions to local authorities on their development plans.

The power has been used about 30 times by various ministers in recent years. In many of these cases, ministers had to direct local authority members and officials to change their draft development plans because the guidelines on flood-risk management were being ignored. Some of the local authorities (among them Roscommon, Laois, Limerick, Galway and Cork) feature prominently on the list of places with flooding problems currently.

We now have a planning system and enforcement powers that can prevent a repeat of mistakes even if it is too late for many.

The wider phenomenon of climate change and the effects it is having on our weather is a more recent issue. Places with little or no history of flooding are becoming victims of these changes. We were warned about this and urged to prepare flood defences nearly 20 years ago but little was invested until recent times.

The OPW, despite the criticism levelled at it, is doing excellent work within the financial constraints imposed on it.

There is evidence that those constraints are being lifted but, to ensure that 50 years from now we are not looking back at even greater disasters, politicians must live up to the fine words at COP21 and invest in the policies that they know will prevent such disasters.

Noel Dempsey is a former Fianna Fáil TD and minister. He held a number of portfolios including environment and local government