Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)

I thank the front line services in local authorities and in all statutory bodies and agencies for the tremendous work they did over the past few months in dealing with flooding in the first instance and frost and snow in the past few weeks. In spite of funding cutbacks and staff cutbacks, they made a major contribution to keeping essential services going at local level. This was a first test of the Minister's national emergency plan. The website of the office of emergency planning was difficult to understand, stating: "a national framework for response to severe weather emergencies is being developed to ensure that all existing local severe weather plans are appropriately coordinated and linked." I want to bring this to the attention of the Minister and ask a question on it.

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