Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We have seen on television and on the ground the devastation being caused by the floods. People's hearts have been broken. The River Suck drainage committee was disbanded more than a year ago, meaning that 30 or 40 people employed in the committee have not been doing any work to prevent flooding. The scheme was sponsored by Galway and Roscommon county councils. The rivers in most counties, including counties Mayo and Offaly, have not been cleaned out.

The Minister of State, Deputy Damien English, will be familiar with land. We come from marginal land and spend our lives trying to tame a wild duck, in other words, trying to make good land out of middling land. We do this by creating shores and making and cleaning drains. Some towns require flood walls to block flood waters. However, in the vast majority of locations, the most important measure is to clean out rivers. The River Shannon at Banagher, for example, is silted up to approximately 12 ft. I know a guy who failed to get up the River Suck in a canoe because of the level of silt in the river. I am not scaremongering. I come from this area and have a good idea of the issues.

Under successive Governments, the position has been that everyone but local people are responsible for water courses. Five or six bodies, including the ESB, Inland Fisheries Ireland, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, which thinks it owns the country, and Waterways Ireland, share responsibility but none of them co-ordinates with the other bodies. We have to cut to the chase by ensuring that one body assumes responsibility. It is hard luck to whoever comes in the way of a machine intended to save people's lives because I am sick of people telling me that flora or fauna are more important than a human being.

Nearly every Deputy was brought up in the countryside and we grew up with nature and looked after it. We preserved the birds. Weekend fundamentalist environmentalists are coming to the country and telling us what to do, which will not work. We have now drowned most of the nature in every part of the country because these people do not understand managed landscapes.

Municipal areas generally have two area engineers. However, staff have been cut over the years and people who retire are not replaced. At one stage, a member of council staff, usually an elderly guy, would travel around water courses, opening them up with a shovel. This had an unbelievable effect in areas.

The lunacy of European Union regulations means workers building a road in Moycullen were told to stop work if rainfall exceeded 6 ml. because a dropeen might get near the poor pearl mussel, which was five miles downstream. We need to cop on. Behind the scenes, everyone will tell me I am right but that does not solve the problem for people in Athlone who are out of their homes this evening because of flooding.

If we are so fond of the environment, we should consider the environmental damage being caused by the floods. Many slatted sheds are full of water today, which means a large amount of slurry will flow down the River Shannon. There is no point in denying it.

Every Deputy would support the Government if it sent a Minister to Europe to face down whoever it is over there who thinks he is God almighty. We should ask the EU whether it wants slurry or water to flow down the River Shannon and whether it wants people to live in Ireland or the country to become a theme park.

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