Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

The Minister speaks about this body and the other body being responsible, this report and so on. On 24 October, there was serious flooding in 89 different locations in my area alone. Hundreds of families saw their houses flooded. For many of those families, it was a repeat episode of flooding. It happened again, again and again. The thrust of my question and the appeal of the residents in Blackrock, Monkstown, Stradbrook, Sallynoggin, Dalkey, Ballybrack and Dún Laoghaire - I am sure this is repeated all over the city - is that the State takes responsibility.

How the Minister brings different Departments and the OPW together to sort this out is really up to the Government. That is what the Government is there for, but it is clear that this is not just a natural disaster problem, but essentially the consequence of developers being allowed to run amok over the years, putting up developments willy nilly all over the place and not putting adequate water and drainage infrastructure in place. Local authorities previously identified flood works that they knew had to be put in place, but they failed to do so over years and failed to require developers to put in proper water and drainage infrastructure. This meant a disaster for people on 24 October, which was not the first time for many of them. They cannot get insurance any longer and they quake in their boots every time the rain comes down.

Money should be made available to carry out the water and drainage infrastructure work in flood black spots as a matter of urgency. An insurance scheme should be put in place by the Government, so that people who cannot get insurance because they are repeat flood victims will be able to do so, and local authorities should be given the resources to do simple things like regularly clean out gullies, especially in flood black spots.

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