Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for the response and, as I said, I know about the sensors being installed on the pedestrian bridge, the Lidl Bridge, the People's Park, and so forth, and that the drone survey has been completed. I also know a number of CFRAM studies have been done and there has been some engagement on the removal of that bridge. The reason I want to put this on the record, and I am a realist, is that everybody's story is a tragedy, no matter where it is in the country, so it is to highlight the level of fear people are feeling. Even in the case of my own office, which was not a priority compared with businesses and homes, I will be lucky to have that opened in about two weeks, which shows the damage that was done to places, and I am very lucky.

I am 54, plus a little bit to that, perhaps, and I have never seen flooding like this in my town, but I have seen community spirit rise above it. What they really need is open engagement. The biggest problem we have with anything is there is no two-way flow of information. I know the council, the Government, the OPW, the office of the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, and the local council have been actively working on this. I want to put that on record and recognise it. I am very lucky in that I engage with as many people as I want and I speak very frankly when I am talking to people. I just need to put on the record that there will be a petition coming, and it will probably come to us on the petitions committee, in any event.

I welcome the fact there is money there, the process has moved forward and the Government, the councils and all other stakeholders have identified where the problems or possible problems are. It is not going to happen overnight, but if remedial work can be done, the most important aspect of this being some kind of a state-of-the-art solution - we know the early warning system has been piloted since about 2016 - where we can go back to our constituents and say, God forbid should it ever happen again, they will have five, six, or seven hours to prepare for something, that would a start. We know it will take a long time to solve this problem but I will just keep an eye on it. I thank the Minister of State for the response and it is encouraging it is moving forward.

See this speech in context