Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)

I thank the witnesses for coming in. I will start by acknowledging all the work that was done by ESB staff, local authorities and volunteers. The Comhchathaoirleach mentioned all the ESB staff who went up from Kerry to the midlands and Longford to help repair the damage there. In Kerry, for example, in a period of eight weeks, in the week before the election there was severe flooding, particularly in the Listowel area following heavy rain and snow melt upriver. At the beginning of January of this year, there was the snow impact in the Brosna-Knocknagashel-Crompán area. A couple of weeks after that there was Storm Éowyn. There is an overall picture of severe weather alerts. If the month of October is anything to go by, where we had the heaviest rain in the country in years, this is going to be happening into the future.

The OPW was mentioned. I want to get back to the point about the statutory regulation of forestry corridors. When is that likely to happen? Apart from the biodiversity devastation that has happened, people in the Knocknagashel-Brosna area say that the Rivers Smearlagh and Awbeg have been severely impacted, with no salmon or brown trout in those areas. It has not been mentioned in the OPW report on the flooding report in Listowel, but there is also the impact of vertical drainage and huge volumes of rainwater coming into the tributaries, going down into the River Feale and out and causing the flooding in Listowel, in my view and according to the people in the area. That is not being addressed in the responses or the flood review to what happened in Listowel. Is communication happening between the OPW, the Department and the forestry sector to try and address this into the future? Is the ESB taking that into account when dealing with the regulation of the forestry condition?