Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

To the credit of local authority workers and front line staff, certain industrial relations issues were deferred, postponed or disregarded for the duration of the emergency. We were all grateful for that and it showed the civic-mindedness and good public-spiritedness of workers who simply sought to help neighbours as well as doing their job. That was indicative of the overall community spirit in areas of particular difficulty and efforts to ensure no problems or industrial relations issues that might arise in the context of an ordinary situation would impinge upon the effectiveness or availability of qualified staff to alleviate hardship where possible. That should be placed on the record.

I refer to the question of the effects of the moratorium, which was necessary in an effort to control public expenditure. We have the prospect of dealing with some of those issues now in the event of the ratification of agreements which were concluded overnight. This is a public sector wide agreement. The sectoral arrangements in place will enable a redeployment mechanism to exist that will overcome many issues in this respect.

I refer to the question of water supply. There has been a great investment in the past ten years in the improvement of water services and the provision of water infrastructure. We are aware of the effects on reservoir levels and the provision of safe water as a result of the exceptional level of flooding in some areas. The public notification of difficulties was taken up and communicated in a competent way. People were aware of the dangers in particular areas. Efforts were made through mobile means such as tankers etc. to supply people. Some communities were in an exceptionally difficult position not only in terms of drinking water, but in terms of sanitary services in their homes for days and, in some cases, weeks. The local co-ordinating emergency response used the local knowledge and expertise available. People met and worked on a daily and hourly basis to alleviate what would otherwise have been a very difficult situation for communities. There was an ability to cope and to deal with the situation despite very serious pressure on service needs in many areas. I acknowledge that many people had to put up with a less than optimum service because there was a time period during which people had to get in, sort out pumps, bring back electricity to public supply systems and enable water to be put back on call and back into the system. It is important to acknowledge all of this.

The Deputy may well point to a situation which, were we in different times, could have been dealt with in the way he has suggested but given our circumstances economically and financially, the response to the difficulties we had during that period was exemplary in all cases. I am not aware of any area where there was a less than civic or community-minded response. Credit is due to everyone for this, including many of the voluntary services as well as those in the statutory services.

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