Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the recent flooding in north County Louth, including Dundalk. Carlingford on the Cooley peninsula was particularly devastated, with unprecedented rain. I would like to think there would be flexibility in the humanitarian assistance scheme and the emergency business flood relief scheme. A request has been made to provide a scheme for farmers whose lands have been damaged and whose feedstock has been destroyed. A major issue is Government funding to make sure infrastructure such as roads can be reopened and bridges fixed. We should then look at what mitigation is possible in north County Louth. I have a specific question on Dundalk because the town is probably only one rain away from thousands of houses being flooded. I am referring to Cluan Enda, Bay Estate, the area off the Avenue Road and the area between Red Barns Road and St. Alphonsus Road. It involves a significant number of estates. We do not have the capacity to deal with the amount of wastewater being produced. The area generally experiences flooding on a normal day, which tells me there is a difficulty between Irish Water, the council and the company subcontracted to operate the local pumping station. An assessment needs to be made because we cannot deal with the level of wastewater from the new estates and factories that have been built in recent years.

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