James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

I concur with the Minister in his praise of those who worked very hard. I would liken them to troops in the field who fought bravely to maintain the roads and services. Is there something about the Minister's constituency and being leader of the minor party in a Government with Fianna Fáil that leads the general to abandon his troops in the middle of battle? That happened with the leader of the Progressive Democrats who upped and left in the middle of a war. The Minister's invisibility during the course of this distressing crisis for many householders throughout the country was extraordinary. I do not know whether he was in the sun enjoying himself along with the Minister for Transport, Deputy Dempsey, while the people here suffered and therefore was not aware of the hardship they were enduring.

There is a quarry with salt stocks in Carrickfergus in the North of Ireland. I understand it is the only such quarry in the country. Salt can be purchased there for €44 per tonne. In my area of Fingal only 50% of the roads were gritted. Most people were running out of their supplies of salt and when they went to buy more it was all gone. The North of Ireland retains 50,000 tonnes of salt for emergency purposes. What is our reservoir - which can be a space to accommodate anything - or stockpile of salt? I understand it is 50,000 tonnes. Yet, if we were to take a lead from the North of Ireland, proportionally, we would have more than 217,000 tonnes of salt.

I ask the Minister, as I asked this morning in this House, will he put in place a clearly identifiable individual who will retain authority for salt stocks in this country? I referred this morning to the excellent work done by Met Éireann in predicting this crisis. Will the Minister put in place such a person similar to the person who is responsible for our oil reserves?

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