Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy McConalogue for introducing the motion this evening and I welcome the opportunity to speak on it. This is not the first time I have spoken about flooding in this House for the simple reason that I come from south Galway and represent the people of east Galway where in 2015 flooding played a significant part in our lives when Storm Desmond arrived. We experienced the effects of flooding from Christmas 2015 until the middle of the following February.

As colleagues said previously, we cannot control the climate but we can control the template of how we respond to flood events. I listened to references in the debate to humanitarian aid and the Red Cross. That same template is what we needed in south Galway in 2015 as we experienced the same delays that Deputy McConalogue and his colleagues are experiencing in Donegal at the moment. What people need when devastation knocks on their door is to know that there are avenues of support they can access. We need to look at how we will put this template in place, be it for families, businesses and county councils. People need to know that there is a contingency plan in place on a statutory footing for each council area so that a certain amount of funding is available depending on the trail of destruction.

There should be a basic minimum available so that when families need the support it is there, be it the €600 from the Red Cross or whatever is needed to keep the farms ticking over. In our case in south Galway, the helicopters had to come in. We had 60 cattle marooned. People did not know for weeks on end how long it would take to get their funding. Initially they thought their funding was the same as everybody else's and that they were going to get €600 from the Department of Social Protection. Everybody plays their role - the Government, county councils, the ambulances, the helicopters - everybody helps out. In these crises, people need to know if there is funding available and where they should turn. It is as much as a support for the public representatives on the ground and those working in Departments. We must know that it is there and on a statutory footing so we are not wondering what we are going to get. It was a huge help to us in south Galway at the time of the flooding that there was funding put aside for our road infrastructure. A lot of our roads and bridges had to be completely redone. It was really well done. We had to beg for that sort of money, however, although it did become available. There should be contingency funding laid aside for the likes of these occasions.

In south Galway at this moment, the Shannon is 13 inches higher that this time last year. We are all aware of that. We do not need much rain this year to push it over the edge. Nor do we need much rain to find ourselves back where we were in 2015. None of us want to be there. One thing is for certain - if we do need the funding and if people find themselves in crisis, we need to know these mechanisms are in place. There are great works taking place in south Galway. It is a huge amount of work. The engineers are two months out from going to contracts, tenders and everything else. It is progressing. At the same time, we will not have a digger in south Galway until 2020. We need to have a comfort in place for those families to know that there will be funding available. We need to know that the mechanism and the template are in place. It is within the gift of the Ministers of State opposite to bring forward the resolutions to these problems. We can find the solution. This time the response was way quicker than we had in south Galway. Why not put the template in place? That is the message of Deputy McConalogue's motion. If we put it on a statutory footing, we will relieve the pressures on people when they are hit with a crisis in respect of an act of God.

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