MUCH OF the flooding that made life miserable for commuters and householders over the past number of weeks could have been avoided if an adequate system of storm drainage had been installed.
And whatever about finding money to rectify past mistakes in current straitened circumstances, there is an urgent need to ensure that new drainage standards and anti-flood precautions are adopted by local authorities, the National Roads Authority (NRA) and property developers.
House purchasers can now check the likelihood of homes being inundated on the Office of Public Works website. But that information only records what happened in the past. Most scientists and weather forecasters expect extreme weather conditions, involving localised downpours, to become a feature of the Irish climate in the years ahead. Because of that, we must take precautions and remedial action now.
It will be expensive. But the long-term cost of ignoring what is likely to occur doesn't bear thinking about. Some local authorities claim they could not have predicted last week's torrential rainfall. Not so. It may have rated as a once-in-a-century event, according to traditional measurements, but such measurements are no longer valid because of climate change.
Motorway drainage is designed to cope with one-in-50 year events and engineers take their lead from standards set in Britain. But the system has been unable to cope with recent extreme weather conditions and the capacity of future drainage systems should be increased. Northern Spain has storm drains capable of taking five times as much water as that which fell in Dublin last weekend. Those drains are unused 95 per cent of the time. But they are available when required and motorists and families are not trapped by flash floods.
A tendency by officials to engage in blame transference should not be tolerated. Local authorities or private operators are generally responsible for maintaining drainage systems on motorways. But little or no contact takes place with the builders of adjoining housing schemes and other developments. Joined-up thinking and planning is required. And money from the inadequate €382 million fund that was set aside for flood defences in the National Development Plan should be used. We cannot afford to go sleep walking into a future where necessary anti-flood facilities are incapable of dealing with projected rainfall patterns. Planning for such events will save money in the long term while reducing the likelihood that homes will be washed out.