Dominic Hannigan (Meath East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I would appreciate it if the Acting Chairman would tell me when my three minutes are up.

We have heard about the problems created by Storm Frank and other recent storms across the four corners of this island and the impact on places like Galway and Athlone. As Deputies have mentioned, however, the storms also impacted on the east coast. Many villages in my county of Meath, for example, Moynalty, Wilkinstown and Carlanstown, suffered flooding. We also had problems with some of our rivers. The Boyne was flooded in parts. The road to Brú na Bóinne, the Newgrange interpretative centre, had to be closed because of flooding. The River Nanny in Duleek flooded, causing problems in places like Boolies and making roads impassable. As such, the flooding was a national event and not localised to certain areas.

Like other Deputies, I commend the emergency services on their wonderful work during the period in question. Our local authority in Meath did tremendous work throughout the county. Civil Defence was out in force, as were the Defence Forces. We owe them a vote of thanks for trying to keep the country on the move during the worst parts of the storms. It was a fantastic response from our public services. The Government has also responded and tried to ensure that improvements will be made. A clean-up fund was increased, family farm homes were made eligible under the humanitarian aid scheme and it was announced that a new flood forecasting unit would be established. All of these were worthwhile measures and will go some way towards improving the situation.

However, we must ask why this happened. A potential reason is climate change, but Deputy O'Dowd mentioned another. From my own experience of the part of east Meath that he now represents, I know that some of this has been due to bad planning, for example, zoning on flood plains. We need to learn lessons from this. I would like to see improvements regarding certain matters. The climate change convention recently signed in Paris will be of major benefit in the fight to tackle climate change and the proposed improvements to flood defences that were announced in last year's capital improvement plan will see hundreds of millions of euro going to those areas that most need them, but there must be an end to bad planning across the country.

We need to ensure there can be no more zoning on flood plains.

As stated by other Members, insurance companies need to step up to the mark. Many residents in areas that have seen improvements to flood defences were not flooded on this occasion but they still find it difficult to obtain insurance. The industry needs to move ahead on this and ensure insurance is made available to residents in areas that have had flood improvement and protection schemes put in place.

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