Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Clearly, the impact of a flood in any household or business is devastating. As everybody will be aware, it ruins property and destroys people's care and attention and pride for their houses and businesses. That goes without saying.

The situation has brought about an enormous community response. For its part, the national co-ordination committee has been meeting for the past number of weeks. The warning was relayed in good time in this case and there had been a co-ordination of community, Civil Defence, Garda, local authorities, Office of Public Works and others, and now the Red Cross, visible all over the country in terms of the assistance that is being given.

The latest is that the Defence Forces have responded to all requests received from the principal response agencies. That has involved a deployment to eight counties comprising over 200 Army personnel, 34 vehicles and an Air Corps helicopter. The Minister of State, Deputy Harris, is available to speak about the issues of the past, the immediate response and the projections for the future in terms of schemes under construction, schemes under design and the timescales envisaged in all of these. The Minister of State goes to Bandon next week. I expect he will bring the Red Cross personnel with him-----

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