Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I join colleagues in expressing sympathy to all those who have suffered as a result of the flooding and from the very serious disruptions to their homes, businesses and to life in general throughout the country, particularly in Cork city county, which has experienced unprecedented flooding of a kind never experienced before. That is the key point. People have asked what happened. One fundamental thing happened - more rain fell that Thursday afternoon in a short timeframe than ever fell before. That is fundamental to the impact of the rainfall on the dam, the release of water and the subsequent flooding.

Cork is a low lying area. I recall that during my childhood areas of city island were always flooded when there was a high tide and so on, but the area where there is flooding on this occasion is one that has never experienced flooding. I have been told that shops in that area for more than 50 years have not experienced flooding. There was a breach of the quay wall in Grenville Place, which was unprecedented such was the force of the water. The flow of the water cascaded down through businesses and inner city housing. The conditions were so grave at 3 a.m. on Friday that consideration was given to the evacuation of the entire Mercy Hospital. Only for the sandbagging which held the wall at that location, that was a real possibility. The accident and emergency department and the lower floor had to be evacuated and equipment had to be moved to the upper floor. That raises other fundamental question down the line.

Only for the intervention of the front line services a greater catastrophe would have unfolded. We must remember that the front line services have to prioritise. People will have concerns and will complain, but the bottom line is that no life was lost. That is something for which we must be thankful and for which we need to pay tribute to the front line services. The loss of life was a very real possibility, given the enormous volume of water released into the city. Up to 800 tonnes of water per second was flowing at one stage. It was unprecedented. The ESB have described it to the city manager as a one in 800 year event. There has been incredible damage to houses. The county library was open that Friday. It is a €20 million building and everything in it was destroyed, the library archives and so on. UCC is facing damage of between €15 million to €20 million. It has lost one fifth of its space in terms of provision for lecture theatres and 2,000 students have been left without accommodation. These are very severe impacts that we have to take on board.

My main concern is to try to restore water as quickly as possible to the approximately 18,000 houses that do not have water, predominately on the north side of the city. There is a public health concern in that respect and we have to be mindful and attentive to that. The communications issue Deputy Ciarán Lynch raised is a valid one. There needs to be mass communication to the people in terms of the next steps to be taken, what is happening and the steps we should take in terms of safeguarding public health.

I appreciate the contributions by the Minister, Deputy John Gormley, and the Minister of State, Deputy Martin Mansergh. The major initiative on the Lee catchment area, the draft flood risk management plan, needs to accelerated and the necessary steps taken. The overarching issue is that climate change is with us. It is a here and now issue, and not something that will happen in future. That has a dramatic impact on mindsets within local authorities. I do not believe it has sunk through yet, excuse the pun. In terms of thinking, I would ask what is the priority of any council. The priority of the city council in Cork should be the protection of the city from here on in terms of quay walls and bridges because there will be many more such events. Irish Aid has examined the global incidents of major weather catastrophes. The number of such incidents has increased by more than 160% in more than an decade. That is the type of incident of which we will see more. Therefore, we have to change the prioritisation of issues for the future to protect against flooding. I appreciate the humanitarian aid that is being made available. The Lee treatment works have been there for 250 years. Hindsight is a great virtue, but we are all claiming hindsight of 250 years with regard to it. However, its location beneath the dam is an issue for the future.

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