I will use my time to articulate on behalf of the residents of Dromara their frustration, anxiety and sense of simply having been forgotten about when it comes to flooding in the village.

Last night, I attended a community meeting with Sorcha Eastwood MP that was facilitated by Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council to establish, or rather re-establish, a resilience group to respond and react to any flooding event that may occur this year. That follows dreadful floods last year that saw raw sewage enter homes and businesses in the village. Confidence is low in the community that any meaningful preventative work has been carried out to protect them from a reoccurrence this year. I am grateful to NI Water officials for meeting me and a local business owner on Friday. It confirmed that there are capacity issues in the system, which is struggling to cope with new connections from housebuilding in the area.

The maintenance of the river is also a concern. Assessments and reports show flooding to have been an issue in Dromara as far back as 1997. The flooding risk is known. A commitment to upgrade and tackle those issues definitively has not been forthcoming, however. The idea that incidents can be written off as resulting from one-off or freak weather events is no longer tenable. A BBC article from July this year confirms that evidence shows:

"traditionally drier parts of Northern Ireland, such as Counties Armagh and Down, have been notably wetter, and with infrastructure built for a climate 30 years ago, less able to cope with extreme rainfall events."

That certainly reflects the experience in Dromara.

I know that all representatives for the area share my concern and that of residents that the village is being left in a vulnerable position. I know that they will join me in asking the Minister for Infrastructure to work with NI Water and DFI Rivers, first, to prioritise necessary short-term works to help manage flood risk in the area this winter and, secondly and more importantly, to commit to making the necessary capital investment in Dromara to ensure a long-term, sustainable solution to the problem.