Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) have welcomed the decision by Roscommon County Council (the Council) to ‘concede’ and to cease flood-alleviation works at Lough Funshinagh in Co. Roscommon.
The environmental group lodged an injunction against the Council earlier this month to temporarily halt works that commenced in June 2021 to prevent serious flooding that is impacting homes and farms. That action resulted in the Council accepting this week that works cannot continue until “environmental studies have been undertaken”.
Environment and planning solicitor, Fred Logue, acting on behalf of FIE, and speaking on their behalf this week, told Agriland that FIE feel “vindicated for taking the case”.
FIE argued that the Council did not carry out the necessary environmental impact assessments before commencing the construction and laying of a 2.9km pipe that would take excess water from Lough Funshinagh and pump it into the much larger Lough Ree.
Lough Funshinagh is a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and is classified as a turlough because it fluctuates to a significant extent every year.
FIE also challenged the Council’s decision to commence works under the 1949 Local Authorities (Works) Act.
This “enables certain local authorities to execute works affording relief or protection from flooding, landslide, subsidence and similar occurrences” but FIE claimed it can only be used in limited situations.
Sympathy for those affected
Mr. Logue said there is a great deal of sympathy for the people who are affected by flooding in the area, but the question needs to be asked of the Council, not FIE, about why this situation has arisen.
“The Council had a draft document ready to put the project out to tender and in March this year, they decided to pull that and abandoned the correct procedure in favour of one that they have admitted was incorrect,” Mr. Logue said.
“Information that we have from the Council shows that they were advised by one of the top engineering consultancies in Ireland of what they had to do in terms of the procedure reqyuired.”
He said this issue has been ongoing since 2015, so ‘urgency’ could not be cited as a reason to proceed now while using ‘archaic legislation that pre-dates the EU’.
‘Urgency’ is the word – Lough Funshinagh
But farmer local to the area and independent councillor, Laurence Laffan, who sits on Roscommon County Council told Agriland that ‘urgency’ is the most important word to use in relation to this issue.
“This is not about deciding whether we can do something that will solve the problem in two or three years’ time,” he said.
“The lake is currently 825mm higher than it was this time last year and is 2.7m higher than it was two years ago. The chances of that lake getting back down to the same level as last year by October 1, is virtually nil. I expect that it will be 800mm higher on October 1 than it was last year,” he said.
He said the Council made the right decision in not challenging FIE’s injunction, saying that it was based on a legal issue and “it was questionable whether the Council would win”.
“And by the time a decision was made over who was right and who was wrong, the entire [nearby] village of Ballagh would be covered in water,” he said.
According to the Council, from January to April 2021, devastating flooding [at Lough Funshinagh] impacted the environment and the local community, including many elderly people.
“Families had to leave their homes; farm animals were endangered; several public roads were severely impacted or closed; and flora and fauna around the lake and in the SAC was damaged and completely destructed,” Cllr. added.
Since 2016, the flooding there has been escalating.
When asked if he believed that the Council did all that it could to prevent the kind of challenge brought by the FIE to Lough Funshinagh flood works, Cllr. Laffan said:
“We were told in 2016 that the 2015-2016 winter flood was a one-in -100-year flood and wouldn’t be back for a while.
“When it got worse at the end of 2016 and into 2017, we were given an indication that that was just was bad luck and, while it is a one-in-100-year flood, you can get two together.
“So it wasn’t until late 2017 that any specialist was giving the impression that this wasn’t going to rectify itself, that it was just going to get worse.
“And if we had started, in 2018, what the FIE are looking for, we would be still going through that process now.
“But secondly, due to the speed at which this lake took off in 2020, when last April, it reached 69m above sea level and about a half a metre above the floor of the houses we were protecting, our chief executive, Eugene Cummins, rightly decided that this was an emergency that has to done immediately.
“He invoked an article from 1949, the emergency works legislation, and work commenced to put in the pipe with the support of the OPW and the support of the minister.”
National response
But Mr. Logue said “an emergency relates to something that is unexpected and that happens suddenly”.
“There was nothing unexpected or sudden about this. You can’t do nothing and then say there was an emergency after having done nothing for five years.”
He added that flooding like this is not an isolated incident anymore; it is a national issue that requires a national response.
“We can’t just have one-off emergency responses that cut corners or bypass proper procedures that are designed to protect the environment in response to something that is caused by environmental damage.
“The risk is there to do more environmental destruction due to a lack of planning and a lack of a programme to deal with flooding.
“Long-term, and across the country, we need to sit down and figure out how we are going to deal with the inevitable flooding that is going to arise from climate change.
“This is a manifestation of a bigger issue,” he said.