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

Before Christmas I made a similar visit to the Netherlands with regard to flooding and the Office of Public Works. I would put it down to one word in the Netherlands, and it will become the same word here, "survival". No-one objects to the work that the Dutch authorities do through the Rijkswaterstaat. No one objects to the maintenance programme, the rehabilitation of sand dunes or anything like that because they realise that without the work of the Dutch Government and our equivalent agency, there is no Netherlands.