Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is a very reasonable question. By 22 January 2016, which was last Friday, a total of 3,122 members of the Defence Forces had been deployed. In addition, 517 Defence Force vehicles, including ten helicopters, have been provided to support these works. This was a major response by any standards. If we are learning lessons - there are always lessons to be learned from the kind of experiences we have had over the past two or three months - I would like to see local authorities calling for assistance from the Defence Forces earlier. There were thousands of local authority workers out manning pumps and helping people to get water out of their premises. One of the lessons learned is that we have significant capacity in the Defence Forces that is available to be deployed quickly and early. It should not be seen as an admission of defeat by a local authority to work with significant Defence Force capacity earlier in a crisis. The local authorities, on the whole, did a really good job given the extent of the flooding. One of the lessons, from my perspective, is that local authorities should feel free to seek assistance from the significant capabilities of the Defence Forces earlier in a flood situation. That would have been helpful but it still would not have solved all the problems.

See this speech in context