Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Army personnel were available and at the end of a telephone, day or night, to man pumps, fill sandbags and assist communities to keep flood waters in abeyance. In the complex area between the Slieve Aughty mountains and Kinvara, where fractured limestone results in underground streams and turloughs which emerge in winter, flexibility must be shown under the Habitats Directive and water directive to take excess surface water from those turloughs and allow houses, dairy farms and agricultural sheds which are currently flooded to carry on business as normal.

Lessons are being learned. Clearly, one cannot predict the extent of rainfall that nature sends to us. I understand exactly the frustration of so many people but all of these agencies are working flat out to bring about solutions. The period ahead is a very important time for rectifying some of these problems in preparation for what might happen again next winter.

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