Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

I have two questions for the Taoiseach, primarily following on our experience of flooding in Cork on 19 November last. I agree with what he had to say about the response by local authority workers and many voluntary organisations, which, in some cases, was heroic. However, there are lessons to be learnt.

Will the Taoiseach commission an independent inquiry into the flooding of Cork city at that period? There has been an internal inquiry in the ESB. There have also been reports by Cork City Council and Cork County Council, and the all-party Oireachtas committee is looking at it. However, the Taoiseach's Ministers and backbenchers in Cork have supported calls for an independent expert inquiry into how the flooding occurred and how we can ensure, through management of water flows through Inniscara dam, in particular, and further upstream, we can reduce the likelihood of it recurring. Everyone agrees that the 540 tonnes of water a second coming through the dam at its peak during the flood period is what caused most of the damage in Cork city. Will there be an independent inquiry? The Minister of State, Deputy Kelleher, in particular, has been vocal on this issue?

A failing occurred with regard to the information flow between the ESB and Cork City Council and, most importantly, between those bodies and the public. Technology provides interesting solutions which are being adopted elsewhere, in particular, in the UK in a number of towns where flooding is a problem. The Office of Public Works has recently begun a tendering process to examine a new system whereby people could be warned via mobile telephone about flooding. However, the tender is limited to flooding. Has the national emergency response committee discussed broadening the response to include other emergencies? Will the Taoiseach consider broadening it to general emergency responses?

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