Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I accept that climate change is having an impact and the response to the impact of climate change is not urgent enough. We are now told that it will be 2016 or 2017 before any work will commence on schemes in Limerick, Cork or Galway. The programme for Government refers to legislating to give relevant line Ministers temporary powers to take charge of the State's actions in response to natural disasters under the aegis of the national response action committee. That is in the programme for Government but it has not happened and it is time it happened.

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