Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank both Deputies and I know they have both raised this with me previously. I know they both have a keen interest in it, as do the other Deputies in the city. Deputy Farrell is right, the devastation was catastrophic. It blew a wall out in front of Oranmore railway station. It made smithereens of it. Really, it is amazing there was no loss of life and were it not for the fact a shop worker was pinned between a fridge and a glass door in a shop in Clarinbridge he probably would have drowned inside the shop. Anecdotally, from what I have heard -and it is on the basis of receiving information from people in the dead of night as opposed to during the day - it was almost like a tsunami, the power of this event that came in. I understand there is frustration and there is frustration in an awful lot of places around the country. We have to make sure that first, we will get planning permission, and second that we will get planning permission for a scheme that will actually make a difference to the people of the Claddagh, of the area around the Spanish Arch, of the town and all of the parts of Galway that are affected. As I said already the programme for the scheme required a revision, following early indications, in the hydrological and hydraulic modelling.

Deputy Farrell asked whether there was a shortage in the skills available. There absolutely is. It is not just in the public sector, it is in the private sector. It is not only in Ireland there is a dearth of this available skills-set across Europe. Even to try to get people to come in from abroad is very difficult. That is one factor.

The other factor is, and Deputy Connolly alluded to it, we have now seen a major Atlantic storm that has wreaked havoc on the city, yet again. Luckily there has been no loss of life. An awful lot of damage has been done - public and private - and we want to incorporate that into the modelling. That will not take forever and a day and this is why I was anxious that when I met Galway City Council that it would bring the public representatives - council and Oireachtas - up to speed as quickly as possible around the timeframes. I know what stage one means and I know there are five stages, and that stage five is the handover and that is the ultimate point. We will hand over in Athlone, County Westmeath this year. I am reluctant to give a date beyond the ones I have given already for good reason, and I think Deputy Connolly accepts my bona fides in that, other than to say this is a huge priority for us. We met all of the local authorities last week - Galway, Louth, Wexford, Cork city and county - that have had the worst impacts of the storms that have happened only in the first four weeks of the winter. We still have not even gotten into the depths of the winter and we have had six named storms. I am particularly worried about Galway. I am particularly worried about Limerick - my nearest city - and about Cork and Dublin. These are huge urban conurbations. They are not defended and they need to be defended.

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