Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

More rain fell in parts of County Cork in a few hours yesterday than would normally fall in a month. Midleton, Castlemartyr, Glanmire, Killeagh, Cloyne, Whitegate, Blackpool, west Waterford and other places all experienced devastation to one degree or another. In Midleton, patients had to be evacuated from a hospital and children had to be carried out of a childcare centre by parents via piggyback. In Glanmire, Sarsfields GAA club allowed its pitch to flood to protect the wider community. The pitch, the drainage, the offices and the walls were all destroyed. We won a county. We lost a pitch but, hopefully, saved part of the community.

The Taoiseach is due to arrive in Midleton in 20 minutes' time. He will don the raincoat and wellingtons, pose for the cameras and say the right things. Come tonight, he will be gone and the devastation will be left behind. The Government will be judged not by the quality of the photo opportunity but by the quality of the relief operation, the speed and size of the compensation package and, crucially, on the actions taken now on flood defences. Again and again, in town after town and community after community, people are saying that the defences they were promised have not been put in place and the State's response is not keeping up with the climate threat. Spain and Greece have been hit by heatwaves and Canada has been swept by wildfires, but in this country, and in our county, the biggest threat is the rain and the floods.

The OPW organised the catchment flood risk assessment and management, CFRAM, programme in 2018. Some €1.3 billion has been provided for the years from 2021 to 2030, which is €144 million annually. Does the programme need to be redone now, with updated climate models? I think more finance needs to be put aside and greater urgency needs to be shown in actioning the plan.

Great praise is due to the public sector workers who pitched in during this emergency. For the information of the Tánaiste, however, the workers who clean the gullies for Cork City Council have been asking and pleading for years now for simple tools like angle grinders to open up the gullies and for more staff and more vehicles, to little or no avail. The firefighters who intervened in Midleton yesterday should have had swift water rescue technician training, but they do not. They were not trained for such a scenario and were forced to take unnecessary risks. When is the State going to give these workers the backing, support, training and tools they deserve?

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