Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

There is a myth that there are no farmers in the constituency of Dún Laoghaire. However, I would like to put on record a tale from some 28 years ago. Close to where I grew up in the foothills of the Dublin mountains in Dún Laoghaire lived a wise old farmer named Paddy Whelan. In 1982-1983, as I walked through the snow towards him I asked: "Is it as bad as '47?" to which he replied " '47?, '17." He put his finger on it, namely, we get cold snowy weather in Ireland and although we do not get it that often when we do, it can be quite severe and we need to be prepared for it.

On the whole the local authority in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown was prepared for the snow. It had maps on its website where one could see at a glance which roads would be gritted. It did well. The main routes were kept clear. At a time of scarce resources it ensured there was enough grit left over to put on the footpaths in the main towns and to ensure common areas in senior citizen dwelling areas were well gritted. If anything is to be learned from it, as the county manager, Mr. Owen Keegan, said to me the other day, there may be a case for gritting the roads of smaller estates which are hilly. I believe this can be done. When it came to breaks in water supply the tankers were out. We had Guinness tankers out dispensing not Guinness but clean water to residents in Killiney and elsewhere who have and continue to suffer breaks in water supply.

There is a certain irony in Fine Gael this week proposing a single water semi-State utility agency when last week it was complaining, during our discussions on the planning Bill, about the so-called command and control model proposed by Government. One cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hounds on this one. It is crucial that powers at the lowest effective level are used. In most cases, the local authorities were effective in how they dealt with the snow crisis. I would be reluctant to jump in with a new tier of control in terms of how we deal with severe weather conditions.

An argument can be made for more control at regional level. The European water directive strongly states we should be looking at river basins in how we manage these areas.

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