Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to say a few words. The area about which I am concerned is along the Shannon Estuary in west Limerick - from Limerick City to the mouth of the Shannon, in particular the area around Foynes in County Limerick where on the night in question 2.5 ft of water poured out on to the main street causing damage to businesses and homes and the evacuation of people. The Minister will be very familiar with one particular evacuation. I compliment the fire and the emergency services and the local volunteers in the community in Foynes and further afield. While the village and the area has flooded before, the engineers in Limerick County Council say this was the worst they had ever seen.

I am glad the Minister has agreed to a request I made to his office yesterday to visit the community of Foynes next Friday during his tour of the mid-west because he needs to see first-hand what has happened and the potential solutions with the Shannon Foynes Port Company, Limerick County Council and Irish Rail which, along with the local community, are the interested parties.

Another high spring tide is due in the coming weeks, to which previous speakers have alluded, and while we may not be in a position to do remedial works in that period of time, we need a plan. The people of Foynes and further afield along the Shannon Estuary on the Limerick side need some sort of a plan to ensure the State will do whatever it can.

I pay tribute to the work of the ESB, the local volunteers and the Eircom crews who were out in atrocious weather trying to reconnect people. What I will try to impress upon the Minister on Friday week is the need for this community, which experienced severe flooding before, to be prioritised by the Department because what it experienced on the night in question during Storm Christine was nothing like what it experienced before. While the community lives along the Shannon Estuary, and we might be tempted to forget about Limerick in the context of the damage done on the west coast, the people in Foynes are in dire need of attention from the Minister's Department, other Departments and the local authority. I hope support will be forthcoming.

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