Ireland's critical infrastructure, including power generation and water supply facilities, should be "climate proofed" if we are to avoid a potentially catastrophic breakdown in services during extreme climate events.
The report by the Irish Academy of Engineering says strong leadership is also required to ensure national spatial strategies and infrastructure plans are urgently reviewed in the same way, to take full account of the potential impacts of climate change here.
Elsewhere, the report says areas which are at risk of coastal erosion or flooding should be identified and coastal flood warning systems introduced, while statutory development plans should be independently audited and monitored regularly.
In a wide-ranging report,entitled Ireland at Risk: Water, the all-island body also calls for the establishment of co-ordinated North-South strategies for the water sector, high-level strategic climate change bodies, improved delineation of flood plains and the prohibition of development in areas at high risk of flooding.
It refers to recent research from the Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units at NUI Maynooth which found that winter rainfall in Ireland is projected to increase by about 10 per cent by the 2050s, and summer rainfall to decrease by 12-17 per cent.
Speaking after publication of the report yesterday, Minister for the Environment John Gormley said it made "commonsense recommendations which need to be implemented". He singled out the proposals for greater North-South co-ordination as one which made "eminent sense".
"We can no longer afford to build on flood plains, and where we're actually making infrastructural decisions we have to take climate change into account," he added.