A NEW MORE precise flood forecasting system for Ireland has been delayed due to difficulties in sourcing expert staff, a Department of Housing official has told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). 

Met Éireann is due to take over flood forecasting from the Office of Public Works (OPW) and will be deploying more advanced systems. 

Recently, flooding in Midleton, Co Cork, saw families and businesses devastated as over 100 properties sustained substantial damage, and properties in other areas across the country. The committee also heard that the repair efforts in the wake of Storm Babet will cost over €100 million. 

Graham Doyle, secretary general of the Department of Housing, which is responsible for Met Éireann funding, said that the new forecasting system is being delayed because it is difficult to procure staff with suitable expertise. 

Doyle said that the delays in bringing in a new forecasting system didn’t, in his view, “affect those recent events”, but said that having an updated system is the goal going forward. 

James O’Connor, a Cork TD, said there is a real need for an early warning system. 

“Someone has to take the responsibility here,” the TD told officials. 

He said that local authorities become “overwhelmed” when flooding events happen on the scale that Midleton faced. 

“These events are going to become more common, and we are poorly equipped to handle them,” O’Connor said. 

Minister Eamon Ryan yesterday said that the devastating floods that hit parts of southern counties during Storm Babet showed that climate change is happening in Ireland. 

Doyle told O’Connor that Met Éireann is taking on flood forecasting, and will be “putting in place a professional approach, and applying best international practice to it”. 

He also disagreed with the TD’s suggestion that Met Éireann had got it “very wrong” by not issuing a Red Weather Warning for the storm. 

Doyle said the highest level of weather warning causes great disruption, especially to schools and transport, and that the worst effects were felt in local areas, and so localised advice is what is needed. 

Met Éireann recently launched its new advanced weather radar system at Shannon Airport, which is also aimed at making forecasting “more precise”. 

The new system provides more accurate rainfall information, and rainfall radar maps.