At this month’s Economic Policy Development and Future Planning Strategic Policy Committee this Monday, he warned that “in the event of global warming or if the existing Office of Public Works embankments fail for any reason, there will be fairly catastrophic flooding”.

The optimum conditions for this flooding would be “rain in the midlands, a west wind and high tide all together”, he added.

Mr Tobin said that the OPW barriers were built to be several feet over acceptable “ordnance datum”—a way of measuring water levels on maps—but changes to requirements meant that they were technically just higher than acceptable levels.

Michael Collins, Assistant Chief Engineer in the Limerick office of the Office of Public Works, said that any land below sea is at risk for flooding.

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