Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to be able to contribute to this debate and thank Deputy Terence Flanagan and the Acting Chairman, Deputy Mathews, for allowing me speaking time. I did not receive time from the Technical Group although I am a member. I am being denied my rights and it is no harm to put this on the record of the House. Free speech how are you.

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dowd, and thank him for his forbearance and patience. I thank the emergency services throughout the country, in particular south Tipperary and west Waterford. I thank the ESB, telecom workers, the Garda, the fire service, the Civil Defence and the Red Cross and all those who are good neighbours. There was a sense of meitheal and camaraderie. When people were down and in trouble neighbours and family came to the fore as did community-led groups such as Muintir na Tíre. They ensured those without power, particularly elderly people, were not isolated or cut off. I saw people in boats helping those were flooded. I even saw people using the much spoken about jarveys. Everybody helped which is good.

I thank the previous Government, the former Minister of State, Martin Mansergh, and all involved in putting up the flood defences in Clonmel. They worked very well in the main. Three houses in the south-east end of a town in County Waterford were flooded but there is a Garda investigation as to whether someone was cracked, mad, bad, or malicious enough to jam open a valve with a bar. This is what I have been told by the OPW. The corporation in Clonmel, in particular Ger Walsh and Jonathan Cooney, did a good job with their staff.

However, the loss of the Army was lamented. The Army always was available and was factored into placing the mountable barriers on top of the defence walls. The Army always had been counted on in this regard and I thank its members for their activities in the past and the present. Luckily enough, however, the corporation staff had time to do it and could do it but the Army was not on hand. Overall, it worked well but I note all the money that was spent is putting pressure back out on places such as Convent Bridge, Kilmacomma, Knocklofty, my home village of Newcastle and Ardfinnan.

I wish to repeat here in the Chamber a point I have been making for years and that no one can deny, which is the rivers and the water courses must be cleaned. People refuse to look at that option and while I am sure the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, is considering flood defences in many areas, cleaning the rivers is half the work. As for the environmentalists, one could be blue in the face from listening to them. What environments were out in the floods because everything has been washed away? The beds of the rivers must be cleaned as was done in olden times. Old people were prudent, did not build on many flood plains and kept clean the water courses. Maintenance also must take place because it is extremely important.

I also call on the Minister of State, the Government and its strategic infrastructure committee, if that is what it calls itself, to step up and call in the insurance companies. Incidentally, that committee should be on standby to meet at all times and should not wait to be called or put together or assembled. It should tell the insurance companies to cop themselves on because at present, I am dealing with areas in Clonmel that were flooded in past times and in which house owners cannot get insurance. In locations where such a flood defence exists that now has been tried and tested, the insurance company should be forced to declare that area to be insurable again. It is not all about profit and the greed of the insurance directors but they must insure the people. People are in a perilous situations in their homes if they are unable to get insurance. The worry in this regard is serious enough because some of these people had been flooded several times. However, this was not the case this time, thank God, and the insurance companies must step up to the plate.

I also call on the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, as well as the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Coveney, and the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Tom Hayes, to come to South Tipperary to visit. A lot of people visited Clonmel last week to look at successful schemes but it would fit them better to examine the damage that was done to the horticulture sector, which is of major importance in South Tipperary, and its glasshouses and polytunnels. Similarly, I refer to the damage to shrubbery, as together with horticulture, forestry nurseries are a major activity in South Tipperary. They are massive industries that employ up to 1,000 people there but are devastated and need assistance. I visited one farmer who had invested more than €50,000 in an entire acre of polytunnels. He had hoped to put plants into them at the end of February or in early March but they all were blown down. Such farmers must receive recognition and assistance and this matter must be examined and considered. I call on the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to visit this area to see for himself; it is not just what I am saying.

In this context, selling Coillte will no longer be so desirable because its plantations have been flattened. A great deal of damage has been done in what was a most dangerous wind. The manner in which it simply devastated plantations was amazing and when it could not knock them down, it broke them half-ways. The work of many small farmers, who had been encouraged by afforestation schemes, both private and public or semi-public with Coillte over the years, has also been devastated. Their plantations literally have been demolished and they must receive some assistance because some of them have been in receipt of premium payments or grant aid for years. Moreover, it is a very difficult to harvest the timber in that situation, because the machinery available is only able to cut down and knock down the trees when they are standing upright. However, when the trees are leaning or have been flattened, it is a matter of going back to the man with the chainsaw. That is how it is and it will be extremely labour-intensive and very serious.

I also wish to sympathise with the family of the good man who lost his life in west County Cork while repairing a pole. While I do not know what happened, the state of Eircom poles and lines in the countryside is a disgrace. I do not refer to the ESB but to Eircom, which has all but abandoned them and has put in very little maintenance. I salute its workers, of whom so few remain that they are obliged to travel half the length of the country. One of my neighbours travels throughout the entire south east as an Eircom employee. It no longer engages in maintenance and in consequence, poles are covered with ivy or are leaning on top of roads and many of them definitely are rotten. They are dangerous to approach or to put a ladder against on a good day, never mind in that kind of wind. I must also mention a good county council worker in County Tipperary who was injured while out clearing a tree in Kilshane, outside Bansha. I wish him well and a speedy recovery because it is very dangerous work when the trees are knocked down, as they spring in a different way. While they have been felled, they also are under pressure and when one starts to cut them, they can hop or snap and it is very dangerous work. Thankfully there were not many more such incidents. I also thank all the good neighbours came out and helped.

In a recurrence of events in 2009, a situation also has arisen in Cloughleigh, Golden, where three houses are severely flooded at present and will remain so. Although I am unsure, the problem appears to emanate from a quarry source but again, the Department of Social Protection, the council and everyone else has been helping out. Big pumps have been put into action to pump out the water but the houses are surrounded by water and obviously the sanitation is not working. Moreover, the people are unable to enter or leave their houses. This is the position this evening and has been so for two weeks. It will be necessary to relocate these people or they must receive assistance of some kind from the office of the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes to pump out that water or, if possible, to get a flow with the fall of ground. While I believe it could be done by such a method, if possible, it is an engineering science that must be examined and explored because one cannot allow such a situation to continue. The flood will remain until the water table level recedes and even with good or dry weather, it could take a month. This is the traditional time for water tables to rise and all the waters filled in rapidly because there had been dry weather before Christmas.

I do not know how it ever happened that calendar months were allowed as a basis for farmers to spread slurry. Their tanks are full at present but when people had dry weather, given the exceptional weather up to December, they were not allowed to spread it. In some cases tanks are overflowing, which means it is ending up in watercourses and rivers anyway. This baloney that one can only spread slurry in certain calendar months is a folly. It should all be related to climate and dry weather. The farmers themselves know the best time to spread slurry, because they will not spread it when it will run off the land because it then is no use to the land and will damage fisheries and everything else. Consequently, this nonsense must be re-examined and reconsidered.

In addition, the height restrictions on lorries and trailers must be re-examined as soon as possible. We are now entering a period of scarcity, encompassing March and perhaps April although it is to be hoped there will be a good spring. A fodder crisis could be looming again. In the west and other parts of the country, farmers will be obliged to pay twice the price for fodder because they will not be allowed to bring the third bale. This is a nonsense and while health and safety must be respected, this restriction arises simply because when the tunnels were being built, someone somewhere was too lazy, inept or lethargic to ensure their height was the same as standard European heights. Simply because of their problem, they now wish to legislate for the rest of the country. There are only three tunnels of which I am aware, namely, the tunnel in Dublin, the new one in Limerick and the tunnel in Cork. However, in the west in particular, loads must be permitted to be at such a height that will make it possible to bring in the fodder at a reasonable cost. It is dear enough as matters stand and goodness knows what will be the cost of the hauliers. While there is talk of this restriction being examined and lifted, I note that while one is told every hour of every day by several Departments that one must be in tune with Europe, here is a case in which Ireland is out of kilter with Europe. The height restrictions here are lower then apply elsewhere in Europe and this is a matter that should be addressed immediately.

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