Irish Farmers' Association officials and farmers who live in areas of Co Galway subject to serious winter flooding have had a meeting with the Minister for Transport.
They wanted to highlight what they say is a lack of progress on urgently needed drainage work.
Galway IFA Vice President Michael Kelly said the meeting was productive.
The minister had committed to bringing together the National Roads Authority, the Office of Public Works and Galway County Council, Mr Kelly said, with a view to putting in place available finance to counteract the massive flood damage, which occurred in the county last year.
Earlier, the group said it wanted to express its concern over plans to build the next section of the N18 Galway to Limerick road through an area of farmland near Gort.
The area has an extensive system of underground caves and drainage rivers.
The IFA delegation was to brief the minister on its concerns over the plan to build the M18 close to an area of wintertime lakes, known as turloughs, and over a fragile, unstable network of underground drainage rivers known as swallow holes.
The IFA says this system has recently been examined by a group of divers. The findings of its investigation of the underground cave and swallow hole network has raised serious concerns about the advisability of carrying out heavy road construction work on this section of the proposed route, the IFA said.
Mr Kelly says work that might collapse sections of the underground network could create much more serious flooding problems in the Gort area.
Mr Dempsey was in Gort to open a €200m section of the M18.
