Councillor Gary Doherty has described as ‘outrageous’ figures released which show that of the amount of money spent over the last eleven years towards both major and minor flood relief projects across the state.
Figures released show Donegal received just over €2.4m – less than 1% of total expenditure between 2005 and 2015.
The figures, which show that just under €319m was spent between 2005 and 2015 on Major Flood Relief Schemes and Minor Flood Mitigation Works, also reveal that only €147,000 was allocated to major projects in Donegal over the last decade.
The Sinn Fein councillor said “Following recent episodes of awful flooding throughout Donegal last month, many had begun to question the extent of the measures which had been undertaken over the last few years to help address flood risk and develop flood defences in the county.
“In order to get answers to those questions, I asked my party colleague Deputy Pearse Doherty to ask the Minister for a breakdown of the total funding allocated to both state agencies and local authorities for the co-ordination and implementation of flood risk management and mitigation measures in each county since 2005.
“In his response, the Minister stated that while not all spending may be attributed to specific counties as it was allocated across whole catchment areas, he said that data relating to expenditure on both major relief schemes and minor works on a per county basis was available and that just under €319m was spent during the period 2005 to 2015.
“Of this money, the data reveals that over the last eleven years a meagre €147,000 was spent on major flood relief projects in the county while the remainder, which came to just over €2m, was allocated towards minor works and coastal protection measures in Donegal.
“Collectively, the funding given to flood relief and mitigation projects in Donegal for the last eleven years accounted for less than 1% of the total amount spent on similar projects across the 26 counties.
“It is simply outrageous that a county as large as Donegal, which has a number of areas which are quite prone to flood waters as recent months have shown, should be thrown the breadcrumbs while other counties are given tens of millions to protect their communities from flooding.
“If we look at the data we can see that Cork for example received over €66m of this total spend, projects in Dublin accounted for €45m, while in Tipperary just shy of €42.5m was spent on measures to relieve flooding there.
“What these figures highlight is that in the opinion of successive governments, the people Donegal are so far down the pecking order that we don’t even merit 1% of the resources apportioned to help tackle flooding.
“In the past number of weeks, homes, business and indeed entire communities in Donegal have been left devastated by flood waters and this data proves what we’ve known all along: that we here in Donegal are constantly overlooked, neglected and forgotten.”
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