Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

I hope the Minister of State has some good news for us this evening. A number of families in my constituency and in Deputy Clune's constituency are still clearing muck out of their living rooms and kitchens following flash floods last week because of exceptional weather conditions and which, in some cases, simply washed away road infrastructure, as happened out towards Minane Bridge, south of Carrigaline.

There are plenty of precedents where the OPW has made emergency funding available to compensate people and assist them to put basic infrastructure in place to ensure this will not happen again if we get similar torrential rainfall. A total of 19 millimetres fell during a three hour period, the floods were nothing to do with the tides, which are often a problem in the harbour area in Cork, this was pure water volume flowing out of fields on to roads and over blocked gullies, and there is a responsibility on the part of the local authority to rectify the situation, which it is starting to do.

There is also a responsibility on the OPW to put in place basic compensation for people in some cases for damage that insurance simply does not cover. In Glenbrook, seven or eight cars literally flowed down the street because of a mud slide, with much of that mud flowing into people's gardens and houses. Those people need help and even in tough financial times we are not talking about huge amounts of money.

It is important that the OPW recognises, as it has done in the past in the Carrigaline area, that when there are extreme weather conditions, when the infrastructure simply cannot deal with them and when there is significant damage as a result, it should step in and not only carry out a survey so we know what caused the problem and try to rectify it, but that in the immediate term it should give people some redress or some compensation.

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