Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Is the Tánaiste confident that her Department has issued the appropriate guidelines to community welfare officers to the effect that all reasonable costs associated with the damage done to homes can now be claimed from her Department? It is a simple question. She seemed to indicate that there may be a delay in some of the claims coming forward. Will she pay on account, so that as people receive bills and have to pay the costs associated with the damage to their homes, her Department will pay an element of the cost at that time, while more moneys will be forwarded to families as and when they have a better understanding of what all the costs are?

In simple terms, I want to know that the community welfare officers have a very clear understanding that the Department will cover all reasonable costs for those who are uninsured and that it will provide upfront payments for those who are insured, notwithstanding the potential for the home owner to make an insurance claim at a later stage, which does take time. How that would work between the insurance companies and the Department is a matter which I am sure she can address.

My greatest concern is for the people at the coalface who have suffered the trauma and pain associated with this. More particularly, I am concerned about the additional costs associated with trying to get back into their homes. They should not be placed in an intolerable situation of trying to borrow the money, being unable to borrow it and perhaps in some cases having to look to moneylenders or whatever to assist them. We do not want that to happen.

I need assurance from the Tánaiste that the community welfare officers have available to them the resources to deal with all reasonable costs. In some cases, the costs will go beyond bedclothes or foodstuffs that are contaminated as a result of the waters. They will include floor coverings, damage done to doors and the cost of cleaning up the toxic substances that have been leached around lawns and driveways from septic tanks. Some of those costs are additional and they are real. There are also the costs associated with running pumps 24/7 for three or four weeks. There are the additional electricity costs, all of which need to be factored into the Department's ready reckoner, as it were, to provide the community welfare officers with a very clear understanding of what the Tánaiste's is talking about when she says all costs will be covered.

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