Kilkenny Minister Noonan on solutions to the climate crisis

Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Malcom Noonan, has asked for a more localised weather alert system to help communities in Kilkenny and across the country deal with severe weather events.

Speaking in the Dáil on Tuesday, Minister Noonan said: "My own county of Kilkenny had an orange warning in place yesterday (Tuesday) and it proved accurate because flooding incidents occurred from the tip of the county in Freshford right down to Thomastown and Inistioge as well."

"A timeline for a localised approach is important. I had family members who lived in areas prone to flooding in Kilkenny City. In the past, local knowledge gave a certain indication of when a flood would breach houses. However, what we are dealing with now is vastly different. A month of rainfall was dumped in an area in 24 hours. It would be useful to have local adaptation measures to protect properties in place that could prevent even a few inches of water coming into a house, which can be devastating."

The local Green Party TD added 'nature based solutions' need to be explored to combat the impacts of climate change going forward.

"We need to start looking at nature-based solutions to how we can attenuate the problem by holding water and letting it back into a catchment more slowly. It is critical, as we continue to adapt to climate change, that we look at nature as an option in trying to manage water catchments, when we have large bodies of water in areas where there are lots of hard surfaces," Deputy Noonan concluded.