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

I welcome the fact the Minister stated he will examine the cases of people without insurance who have been refused assistance under the €10 million scheme. I would appreciate if the Minister follows through on this and I will send on to him the details. I appeal for some joined-up thinking rather than having the Office of Public Works here, a section of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government there and the local authorities elsewhere. This has been a recurring crisis. If it were a once-off matter I could understand the Minister's response. Every time the rain comes down heavily people in these flood black spots begin to quake in their boots with fear because of the possible consequences. There have been cases of flood waters mixed with sewage swilling through people's houses resulting in appalling damage but everyone is passing the buck.

If we could move heaven and earth to provide bank guarantee schemes to cover the banks, could we not have some interdepartmental co-operation, pooling of resources and joined-up thinking to resolve the various issues arising for those affected by flooding? For example, the local authorities claim that their responsibility is limited to clearing out blocked streams if they are in public ownership but that they have no responsibility if they are in private ownership. That is a nonsense. They have a responsibility to ensure there is no flooding. I put it to the Minister that local authorities have responsibilities to their tenants but they are not discharging them and where people's houses are damaged they are refusing to carry out repairs.

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