Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I know the Aire saw the complete and utter devastation in Galway and the very real-life impact it has had both on businesses and on the wider community, within the city and county. The stark thing that stood out to me when speaking to one particular business owner was that she said that this may not have happened before or it may not have happened to this extent before, but we know this will happen again and asked what can we do to ensure it does not. Her business was completely destroyed in terms of what had been there previously. That was something that was not expected and was not anticipated. This is only really the start of our winter season, of our storm season and of the impact it will continue to have.

It is welcome that the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, stated there will be a meeting between Galway City Council and the public representatives. One of the crucial things is to get as much information out to the public, specifically the members of the public who are impacted by this so that is welcome. He mentioned stage one, when does he expect that to be completed? I understand he mentioned mid-2023 at one point and I was not sure if it was related to that specific thing because it is the end of 2023 now. He also mentioned that a delay is caused by a shortage of specialist engineers. I assume he is working on trying to recruit those specialist engineers and I am aware of that. How many of those types of specialist engineers do we have at this moment across the State who can currently work on this? Are they specific to geographical regions or can they insist on other areas?

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