Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased the Minister is here while I am speaking because there are issues, some of which relate to his Department, that need to be tackled in a pragmatic and reasonable way. I have heard much reasonable talk about the fact there is no way in which we can foresee every event of nature. We could deal with all of what we think might happen in the future and nature would still beat us because nature is very fickle. However, we must look at this on two levels. The first and much more urgent level involves dealing with the aftermath of the damage done. The second level, which applies to cities and rural areas but is particularly important in cities, relates to the steps one takes to prevent on a cost-benefit analysis preventable floods in future. We saw the effect of the work that had been done in recent years in Claregalway and Clonmel.

There needs to be a whole-of-Government approach to this problem. We must make sure Departments do not take a narrow approach and look after their bailiwick and little sectional interests. At the end of the day, if there is a problem that needs to be addressed, it needs to be addressed. Nobody chose for this to happen. The consequences outlined by the Minister, including all these loop roads in my constituency that have been destroyed, took place in places one would not expect to find them. An issue that has arisen about which we need clarification is that some of the roads referred to by the Minister are not in council charge. They are public roads leading down to public infrastructure and were built with public money through either Gaeltacht schemes or local improvement schemes. Many of them serve houses, graveyards, piers etc. They are not for private use and when one drives on them, one does not know they are not council roads. We need clarification about the money being provided as long as these roads were submitted on the county council list. I have checked with the county manager with Galway. It is all public infrastructure but a mixture of council charge infrastructure and non-council charge infrastructure was submitted. I believe that in terms of need, they should be assessed on a needs basis and not on whether the council is in charge. If that is not done, we will face a major headache in terms of basic services to people.

I will provide another example of how we need flexibility. The air trips are the lifeline to the islands. There was a large sandbank on Inis Meáin air strip that protected the air strip from the sea. There was a breach in that bank during the first storm and, again, I understand the county council has submitted a proposal to deal with that issue and put in sea defences. I can imagine the turf war that will take place with people passing the parcel in respect of responsibility for these issues. Many rural people have depended on this type of publicly funded infrastructure that is not taken in charge for maintenance for many years and are waiting for that infrastructure to be put back in.

I am very pleased to hear that roads like Errelough road that were destroyed in the storms were county roads. I presume they are one of the five loops because it was the loop with the greatest number of houses on it that was utterly destroyed that will be put back. We need to do this urgently. It is important that within the next day or two, the county council is given the go ahead for the really urgent work. It has waited quite a long time already to be told it will be getting the money and formal sanction to do the work that needs to be done urgently to give people access to their houses. I understand that there has been a bit of tick tacking but the council needs clarity. We need to get that work done. A lot of figures have been thrown about. An allocation was made yesterday, which I obviously welcome, but the reality is that one will not spend the money this year in respect of some of the work that will need tenders, that is not so urgent or will need designs and tenders. Let us be honest about it. It is not that urgent. It is urgent to say "here is the money to go and design it" but one does not have to find the money out of the Exchequer this year. I and the Minister know that so we need to prioritise those issues. I mentioned Errelough road in Roundstone. The road to the oil depot and the recycling depot on Inis Mór has been cut off. I stood in one of the craters created by the sea and it was way over my head. That is how deeply the sea cut into the road. I understand it is far worse since I visited it in early January. We need to give the go head immediately to deal with these. The same thing applies to sea defences, graveyards etc.

The second thing I would like to mention is the need to be creative. I suggested to the Minister for Social Protection twice that we have a huge problem along the coast. Every kind of bric-a-brac has been washed up in the storms. Plastic has come up. Along the coast, particularly in the west of Ireland, many of the fences were not fences but stone walls. In many cases, the entire foundation is gone and what was the beginning of one's field where one built the wall on the grass is now ar dtuirling with all these stones one would find on the seashore. It will be not be possible for many of the farmers who own this land to put back these walls. These walls were built over hundreds of years and the stones would be very heavy to lift. What I suggested to the Minister for Social Protection as a cheap, efficient and socially acceptable way of dealing with this problem was that for one year she would allow the rural social scheme to employ 300 extra participants. A participant on the social employment scheme costs about €5,000 over and above what they will get if they are receiving farm assist. In a situation where one would allow another €2,000 for materials, money or the odd machine one might need to do the work, it is my belief that the cheapest and most cost-effective way of reinstating the coastal walls along the seashore would be to employ 300 extra people at a cost of €2 million net to the Department of Social Protection. To be honest, €2 million is margin of error stuff in the Estimate of that Department. In fact, it is much less than margin of error stuff in the Estimate of that Department. I ask the Minister to ask the Minister for Social Protection to look at this as a creative, cost-effective and simple way of solving a problem that will cause difficulty.

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine confirmed to me yesterday that farmers must build up these walls and fences again or they will otherwise not be eligible for their farm grants. They are already facing the loss of land. I received a letter immediately after the storm asking me whether I could do anything for them as their land was devastated by coastal storm damage. The letter said that all their walls and large chunks of their land were washed away and that they were suffering great hardship because of it. They asked me to let them know if there was any financial help. People are in desperation in respect of this issue.

My time is fairly short. There are many things I would like to say. I reiterate that fishermen have not been able to put to sea and because of the social welfare arrangements under which they work, they have not been able to claim social welfare for the abnormal duration of their time off sea.

Storm after storm has rolled in off the Atlantic. The Minister for Social Protection needs to consider this issue and devise an arrangement to assist these people.

There is a major problem with urban flooding around the coast. Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Dublin are prone to flooding, some worse than others. I join in supporting those who believe that, just as everyone must have car insurance and anyone who is refused, say, four times should go to the insurance federation, we need a situation in which the insurance industry provides everyone with flood insurance, if necessary through a levy, as long as the householder takes reasonable precautions. Otherwise, the industry will throw the entire burden of flood damage little by little onto the State.

I hope that the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, will be able to have some of the issues that I have raised addressed. Perhaps he could write informing me of what council and non-council infrastructure falls under his remit.

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