Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister of State will know, what happened in Leitrim village on Sunday afternoon was an absolutely freak incident that nobody could prepare for. A finger could not be pointed at anyone or any of the businesses regarding what happened. It was just one of these incidents that occasionally occur. According to Met Éireann, in certain weather conditions, small tornados can occur. This tornado ran through Leitrim village. It came up the river and tossed a whole lot of trees and took roofs off houses. It took large branches off trees and dumped them on top of a number of cars. A lady was sitting in the front seat of one of those cars. Had it been facing the other way, she would certainly have been killed. It was a very dangerous situation. The tornado cut a track of about 30 or 40 metres through the village and destroyed practically everything in its path. It also tracked along the river into the harbour area. Boats were upturned along the jetties. The tornado caused devastation everywhere it went and travelled almost a kilometre through the countryside as far as the GAA club, which was also damaged.

The issue that arises relates to the assistance that can be given to people in the circumstances. I acknowledge the visits of the Taoiseach and all the other public representatives who came to show solidarity with the community in the context of the major difficulties it faces. The Taoiseach said he was keen that assistance would be provided. However, I wanted to raise the matter here in order that we might know it is going to happen and that we can follow up on matters in that regard. There is a humanitarian assistance scheme for householders who are in difficulties as a consequence of such incidents. How can people access that and what mechanism is in place to ensure it can happen?

A number of businesses have been practically devastated as a consequence of the tornado. I refer, in particular, to the Leitrim Inn, which is a large restaurant and pub that has had a couple of difficult years as a result of Covid-19 and other issues. The Leitrim Inn is not that long in operation and now it has the damage done by the tornado on top of the other problems. All of this as Christmas approaches. A number of other businesses were also badly affected. They need to reroof their premises. There are water leaks, many windows were blown out and so on. Insurance of course will play a major role in this but we fight about insurance companies in here all the time. Apart from everything else about them, they are slow. They are slow to come out to assess, slow to provide the funding that people require and they use every excuse possible not to pay. Ministers and the Government need to put their shoulders to the wheel and assist people. The area affected by the devastation is not huge. Thank God nobody was killed or hurt. However, we need to ensure that funding is put in place to assist those affected. I also want to commend the local authority and all the emergency services, including the local fire brigade, and other services that rushed to the scene to help. The local authority has done a great deal of work to clean up the area and get everything sorted out. That costs money. The local authority is stretched for funding and will need assistance.

While we are all grateful that nobody was hurt, Carrick-on-Shannon has an ambulance station. On the morning of the tornado, as on so many other occasions, there would have been no ambulance available in Carrick-on-Shannon had somebody been seriously hurt. There was no ambulance available in Carrick-on-Shannon, Boyle, Loughglynn or anywhere else in the area. The nearest ambulance would have had to come from either Sligo town or Longford. There is an ongoing situation in south Leitrim in this regard. We have a serious problem with the ambulance service. We need investment in that service because when these incidents happen, everybody flies to the assistance of people. However, having an ambulance in place is crucial. We do not have one at the moment. That needs to be addressed.

See this speech in context