Council chief's plea to government for funding to solve Lough Funshinagh flood crisis

The Chief Executive of Roscommon County Council is pleading with the government to provide the funding for a "permanent significant infrastructural solution" to solve the Lough Funshinagh flooding crisis which he is warning will only get significantly worse and has left locals "at their wit’s end."

In a stark and somewhat exasperated letter to Minister Patrick O’Donovan, who has responsibility for the Office of Public Works, Eugene Cummins outlines that in the last few days alone the situation has deteriorated further with another flood level exceeded, and he is predicting a second property will be in "imminent danger" within days and both will need the "positive intervention" of the council for weeks to come.

Setting out the measures that Roscommon County Council has taken in recent times, including raising the roads, to help homeowners in the area the council chief says there is only so much they can do without a "permanent significant infrastructural solution" provided by the government which could take three years to put in place.

"The situation is going to get significantly worse and the maximum recorded flood level to date is going to be exceeded many times in the next few weeks and in the years ahead.

"To a certain degree the deteriorating situation has brought the sense of urgency to the situation that has been missing," he says, calling on the Minister's department to provide funding for a flood mitigation scheme at Lough Funshinagh.

In the letter this week, Mr Cummins recalls that the local authority submitted a report to the OPW last year identifying seven flood mitigation measures, however, in August the government department deemed that scheme proposals "fell below the required cost benefit and they were deemed not to be cost effective or sustainable solutions to alleviate flooding at Lough Funshinagh, having considered the financial and environmental constraints".

At the same time, the Office of Public Works also confirmed that property owners who had applied for home relocation would be dealt with under the scheme.

So in this context, the Roscommon County Council CEO says in a somewhat exasperated tone that "from this position there is little Roscommon County Council can do in the context of a permanent significant infrastructural solution to alleviating this flooding without Government intervention."

He goes on to say it is imperative that "further efforts" are made in relation to a flood mitigation capital scheme at Lough Funshinagh and pleads for funding to do so.

"..I hereby request that your Department provide the funding required to progress the already identified solution through the detailed design and planning process.

This will be a significant sum that will require an expensive and necessary environmental and Natura Impact Assessment, topographical survey and ground investigations for the Part 8 planning process (the planning process for council projects). The cost of the actual works will be in the region of €1.5 million together with other costs associated with land acquisition, wayleaves, remediation works etc."

Existing funding schemes do not allow for the scale of planning and civil works required and the local authority could not carry this level of capital cost, he adds.

And while the top council official admits the planning process for any kind of flood scheme in Lough Funshinagh is "fraught with difficulties and comes with more than a small probability of failure," it is for this reason that other stakeholders need to get involved and "rather than hold their positions to date need to look at solutions other than the transfer of responsibility to the local authority."

Important too, he adds to realise that "a successful Part 8 process and 'pipe in the ground' is at best, possibly three years away and of little comfort to the unfortunate families who are at their wit’s end with this despairing situation."

"But for now the 'pipe' is only part of the solution and various departments need to get actively involved to start facilitating a solution, namely a hybrid interim mix of actions to help in the Part VIII process and also to react to existing hardship," he continues, claiming that least two houses will probably have to be relocated, when this happens some works may be done on farmyards.

On the impact to farm holdings, Mr Cummin says those close to the lough have been "significantly and negatively impacted upon. In a couple of cases shockingly so."

The Department of Agriculture need to be told to provide assistance not just now but for the foreseeable future, he spells out in the letter, or until such time as the 'pipe' is in place or as a permanent intervention if the 'pipe' is not possible.

While the Roscommon County Council chief acknowledges that the biggest issue and greatest planning challenge" is the Special Area of Conservation designation at Lough Funshinagh, he sets out in stark terms that without an outflow pipe "the situation in and around Lough Funshinagh is going to get worse, a lot worse."

Mr Cummins believes the flooding is not happening on a cyclical basis and is a consequence of climate change, something which he claims will continue and result in "effectively a permanent expansive lake" unless action is taken.