£30m a year needed for flood defence system, minister tells MLAs
Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins was pressed over preparations ahead of El Nino later this year.
Some £30 million a year is needed for flood risk management infrastructure in Northern Ireland, Liz Kimmins has warned.
It comes while Stormont remains without a budget for this financial year, with all ministers in agreement that the current funding offer from the Treasury is insufficient for public services.
Infrastructure Minister Ms Kimmins was speaking as she was quizzed at the Infrastructure Committee on preparations for El Nino later this year, which may affect weather patterns.
Alliance MLA Andrew McMurray told Ms Kimmins that of the four serious climate events recently, three had been in his South Down constituency, including flooding in Newcastle and Downpatrick.
He asked what proactive action her department is taking ahead of El Nino.
Ms Kimmins said work is progressing, including over flooding in Downpatrick.
She said her department leads on the emergency response for severe incidents, working with the civil service contingencies network.
She said there is a system in place which officials are “continually improving”, but millions of pounds of investment is needed in flood defences.
“In terms of flood risk management, we’ve identified we need probably £30 million a year in terms of capital investment for new flood risk management infrastructure, and a further £8 million of resource (funding) to maintain that existing flood risk management infrastructure, and also for establishing a flood forecasting centre,” she told MLAs.
“With climate change, and we’ve seen one of the hottest summers in memory, intensifying that frequency and the severity of every flood or storm event, we have to keep looking forward, and certainly what officials are doing is looking at what can we expect, not next year, not 10 years, but in 100 years or further, as far as possible, and building on that specialist expertise that we have, and strengthening those forecasts and capabilities, the flood forecasting centre will be absolutely crucial to that.
“We’re looking at options in terms of funding around that as well.
“This is a critical public safety issue. It’s something that is integral to the work that’s happening daily. It’s not something that we just kick-in a week before we know there might be a storm. It’s all year round.
“We have plans, I think that’s important to help not just people in this room, but the wider public to understand what exactly goes into this and what we’re doing all year round to prepare that.
“That also goes back to that winter resilience piece – I’m not saying clearing gullies is going to prevent the El Nino from having a damaging impact, but it certainly goes some way to meaning that our capability to cope with what potentially could be coming at us is improved.”