Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle. His Kildare colleague was here for a few minutes. During that protest by Donegal people, I met a friend of the Ceann Comhairle's from Kildare, who was there in sympathy with the many families from Donegal and to support them. That protest highlighted the national tragedy of this issue. Irish people from all counties now have a full understanding of what it is like because of the recent campaign. Over the last number of weeks many people have tried to put themselves in the shoes of these families in Donegal. Even though I am a Donegal man, and I know people affected in my own parish and throughout different parts of the county, it is very difficult to understand unless the person has lived it and has spent the last year and a half in lockdown while many people were upgrading and enhancing their houses. So many people with mica have had to look at cracks in the walls getting bigger and deal with that devastation.

I agree with the Ceann Comhairle that the Minister of State's response was positive. I welcome that and appreciate it. We need regulations and guidelines, because we are going to be dealing with such large amounts of taxpayers' money. That being said, we have to take on board the full nature of this national tragedy and disaster. This is about individual lives and families trying to deal with this hour by hour and day by day, living the nightmare. We as legislators owe this to them. We are united as a House. We are in unison. We want people to access this scheme and we want 100% funding because the 90% scheme is not working. We want to work this out and bring this to a conclusion. The only way we can do that is to look at families like this one in Donegal. It is a large family and they are only looking for one thing, that is, for their medical needs and personal circumstances to be taken on board. Let us work with local authority officials and Department officials to come up with a commonsense solution, taking on board this family's unique circumstances. I am hopeful that we can do that together.

See this speech in context