Almost €14 million earmarked for a national flood forecasting warning service over recent years was not spent, the Dáil Public Accounts Committee has been told.
Committee chairman John Brady (Sinn Féin) said it was “scandalous” that money allocated for such a system was handed back to the exchequer.
The State’s spending watchdog, Comptroller and Auditor General Seamus McCarthy, said on Thursday that there was an ambition as part of a strategy going back to 2019 for dealing with climate change risks to develop a flood warning service.
He said funding was provided to the Department of Housing for such an initiative. However, he said that in the last number of years, the funds allocated had not been spent.
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Brady said figures provided to the committee by the comptroller showed that just €5.9 million out of an allocation of €19.3 million had been spent on the warning service between 2020 and 2024.
In a statement, the department said Met Éireann had delivered a Flood Forecasting Centre as part of the first stage of the service.
It said a critical service had been provided, including national flood guidance and advisories to the directorate of fire and emergency management, local authorities and emergency management stakeholders.
The department said it also shared information on expected flooding in its public weather warnings and forecasts via its website, phone app and through media engagements.
“The planning for stage II of the national flood forecasting and warning service is being driven by a subgroup of the Government taskforce on emergency planning ... With regard to expenditure on stage 1, Met Éireann utilised existing internal capacity to ensure the development of the flood forecasting centre could be kept on track ... The result of these decisions regarding internal resource management was that the work was completed at lower cost than originally forecast.”
A wet week in Irish politics
The department said Met Éireann “did make an estimates submission for funding towards the continued development of the centre in anticipation of stage II of the development” of the warning service. “The allocation drawdown remains contingent on the outcome of the necessary cross-Government group work on advancing stage II.”
Brady said it was “scandalous to learn that millions of euro” for such a service had been handed back to the exchequer “at a time when so many communities across the State have either experienced flooding or are worried about the risk” of it.
“It is incredible that only €5.9 million out of an allocation of €19.3 million was spent on this service between 2020 and 2024,″ he said. ”In 2023, €7.2 million was allocated and just €1.3 million spent. In 2024, €6 million was allocated and just €1.6 million spent.“
The Wicklow TD said the Government, and in particular the Minister for Housing, had been “quick to point the finger of blame in recent days” about who was responsible for communities and individuals not being warned about the likely extent of flooding.
He said, “this underspend and lack of investment in effective forecasting and warning systems exposes the Government’s failures on this issue”.
