Climate change bringing more severe floods, says Varadkar

Irish premier Leo Varadkar has said climate change will mean flooding and other weather events will become “more frequent and more severe”.

Parts of Ireland have been tackling the aftermath of a series of floods due to sustained heavy rainfall in October.

On Tuesday, a bridge near Riverstown collapsed amid rising water on the Cooley Peninsula, including flooding in Carlingford.

Parts of Co Wexford were submerged, while the main motorway and train line linking Belfast and Dublin were both affected by flooding.

In Northern Ireland, dozens of businesses were engulfed in floods in Newry, Co Down.

Speaking to reporters at the opening of the new Athy Distributor Road in Co Kildare, Mr Varadkar said the Irish Government was activating schemes to help businesses and householders affected by the floods in Louth and Wexford.

The schemes had been offered to residents and businesses affected by floods in Co Cork earlier in the month.

Mr Varadkar said: “We do expect business owners and homeowners to have insurance but where people can’t get insurance through no fault of their own, that’s where the Government steps in.

“We want to make sure that whatever we put in place is adequate so that people can move back into their homes and businesses can operate, particularly this time of year coming into Christmas, it can be very tough on families and very tough on businesses to face flood damage.”

Mr Varadkar said it was not possible to have exact predictions for when and where floods will happen every year.

He added: “But it is clear to me that severe weather events, including floods, are going to become more frequent and are going to become more severe and a lot of that is linked to climate change.

“So we need to make sure that the Government safety net is there for people who can’t get insurance, but also crucially to speed up the number of flood protection schemes that we’re getting done.”

Mr Varadkar said 50 flood relief schemes have been completed in the last 10-20 years, adding that a further 90 are “in the pipeline”.

However, he said these complex schemes can face objections and be “very tricky to get through planning”.

Mr Varadkar added: “Then we also need to be, I think, much more careful about where we build because areas that didn’t flood before are flooding now and areas where floods might have only been a few centimetres high are now much more serious and doing much more damage.”