Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the day when a major emergency plan has been declared for Kilkenny city and county and the south west and south of our country have been battered by the storms referred to by Deputy Ferris and others, I find it really quite disturbing that the alleged leader of the Opposition would try to make cheap little political points. It is gutter politics at its worst. On the day when this House should be coming together to help our people and speaking with one voice, I find the remarks made by Deputy Martin quite remarkable. Clearly, he had nothing of a positive nature to say and he turned the debate into an attack on the Government. It is gutter politics at its worst. It is a very serious issue for the leadership of that party that this kind of mealy-mouthed observation should have been made in this debate. I have just come from a two hour debate in the other House where every member of Fianna Fáil was constructive and wanted to help, as I suspect every Deputy in Fianna Fáil will. For the leader of the Opposition to do what he did in the context of this debate represents a new low even for him in his attempt to rewrite history.

This is a very serious situation and this House should come together. The Government, in its statement yesterday setting out €70 million of additional moneys to repair the damage from the first set of storms in January of this year, has acted appropriately. As the Minister, Deputy Howlin, said, the first response of Government was to set out the initial humanitarian support needed for our people across the western part of this country as a result of the storms that occurred. I pay tribute to the Department of Social Protection and its staff who, as the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, said, are going from house to house trying to get money to those families who need it most and making sure we get support to those families to help them to rebuild their lives.

An enormous amount of damage was done in the first few days of this year - somewhere close to €60 million to €70 million worth. In my area of responsibility - flood defences - we reckon approximately €19 million is required to fix existing embankments and flood defences. Local authorities will apply for funds to do this work through the minor works scheme. The minor works scheme would normally represent approximately €3.5 million but we expect approximately €18 million to €19 million to be the total sum in that area this year. We are asking the local authorities to send applications into us as soon as they can and we will turnaround those applications within a matter of days, and I have already given a commitment to the House to do so. We will prioritise those counties which have been worst affected so that we can get that money quickly to the local authorities. That is the commitment I will give the House in respect of the minor works scheme.

When we have expended that €3.5 million, which I suspect will be by March or April, we will then seek, by way of Supplementary Estimate through the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, additional moneys to replenish the minor works scheme which is the best way to get money quickly to the local authorities. We will give money to the local authorities which, in turn, will contract private sector people to do this work, which we need to get done quickly. I saw examples in Clare, Limerick and Kerry where already the local authorities are patching up work done and are helping to get the embankments solid again. In those cases, we will ensure that the funds are given directly to the local authorities. The Government does not want to see any bickering or any bureaucratic nonsense between local authorities and central Government. We want to ensure that money gets to them quickly. That has been the resolve of Government since this crisis began in the first few days of this year. By virtue of what is happening today and will possibly happen tomorrow, it is inevitable that the bill will grow but we must get that money to the local authorities quickly.

I echo what every Deputy, who spoke in a positive way in this debate, said about what the local authorities and the emergency services have done. They have done a terrific job and are public servants of the highest calibre. I spoke to a group of young people in the Civil Defence in Limerick when I visited there last Monday. They were brilliant young people under 18 years of age who led by example in coming to the rescue of fellow citizens in Limerick and who had not slept for two days. One reads negative commentary about our young people but one should have seen what these young people were doing. It was a marvel. That is the kind of dedication, volunteerism and spirit of our people. It is absolutely the case that the Government, this House and our local authorities must work as one in helping those people in our constituencies who have been so badly affected by the storms and the tidal surges.

What has happened has been an unprecedented weather event. It has not just happened in this country. If one looks at the south of England, France, Portugal and Spain, one will see western Europe has been battered of late. We need a strategic response to this and I make no apologies for my remarks last week that we need a national debate on this issue when the storms end, the cameras stop running and the media is no longer there. The debate I have been trying to have in my Department for the past three years has not engaged the public. We need a debate about how we plan for the future and create sustainable development.

Part of that is the work the OPW has been doing in regard to the river basin catchment areas. We have divided the country into six major catchment areas. All of the areas around those six catchment areas have now been properly dealt with in terms of flood maps. We can now predict what is likely to happen in those river basin catchment areas by way of a series of weather events. Those maps will be signed off on and agreed by this year. By the end of next year, we will have dealt with the 300 areas which are prone to significant flooding events and that will be sent to Brussels with a design plan around each of them and the prioritisation of how we expect to proceed in those particular areas.

This Government and, in fairness, the previous one ramped up expenditure on capital defences. We have €0.25 billion to spend over a five year period. When that envelope comes to an end in 2016, we will set out a new plan. For the first time ever, we will have all of the flood maps in place, which the public can see, and we will have detailed designs around those 300 hot spots and a plan on how we will spend that money. The total cost of those 300 hot spots, as we refer to them in the OPW, is somewhere between €1.6 billion and €2 billion. Given the current rate of expenditure, it could take 35 years before we have dealt with all those issues. Clearly, this will be an issue for Government in terms of capital expenditure and spending on flood relief schemes to ensure we can continue to roll this out. That will require additional expenditure, a prioritisation and a multi-criteria test in terms of cost-benefit analysis. We must spend the money where we can save most. For every €1 we spend, we save €3 in terms of potential loss on the damage side. In Dublin city, for example, €65 million worth of damage was done over three days in 2002. The tidal event that happened in the first two days of this year was greater than the 2002 event but the total damage in Dublin city was less than €100,000. That bill has gone down over the 12 year period because the Tolka River and the Dodder River were dealt with and very important engineering schemes were put in place, which have made a huge difference.

I mention Clonmel, Fermoy, Mallow, Ennis, Waterford and Kilkenny, despite the fact an emergency was been called in the city this afternoon. Where investment has been made, it has made an enormous difference when it has come to dealing with these events. We must agree strategically how we will continue to put investment into these communities. I stand over what I said last week. I was honest in what I had to say. We cannot provide a solution for every acre of land in the country but we need to utilise the resources we have in the most effective way possible.

That requires people to buy into the CFRAMS mapping process and into the plan we will submit under the flood directives by the end of next year.

A national debate about proper planning and development is also needed. We are now paying the price for a generation of bad planning. Houses were built in flood plains and in other areas where they should never have been built. Taxpayers and everyone else in this country are having to pay for that. We need to proceed on the basis of a proper national debate, rather than by making silly party political points during a five-minute contribution that has not been thought out. I hope the House will work on that basis with whatever Government is in office. We need long-term solutions as part of the long-term process of resolving these issues. The most immediate concern we face is to make sure we can help communities to rebuild their lives after these dreadful events. We need to make sure the State is there to support local authorities, which are doing a fantastic job. The necessary planning and funding arrangements must be put in place to help us get through this very difficult position.

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