Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not share the Minister of State's confidence. I have correspondence with me from one of his predecessors, Mr. Brian Hayes, MEP, who similarly visited the region and was told that moneys were available and had been expended on a study. Two or three years later and the weather conditions and erosion have worsened, but Fingal County Council is proposing another study even though the moneys that were available were not drawn down. This is leaving the residents in a vulnerable situation.

The Minister of State's answer is the same one that he gave me in early December, in that the council has not yet applied for anything. At its latest council meeting, it stated that the measures recommended by the previous study, which the OPW had paid for, would not be implemented and it would undertake another study. That is not good enough. A solution must be delivered urgently. What intervention can be made to call the council to account or can it be worked with more closely so that something is done instead of there being another study?

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