Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. I want to wish you the best. I also wish the Minister of State the best.

On Thursday night and Friday morning of the week before last, devastation came upon a lot of families around the country, especially in the west, the north west and the midlands. While it was warned, some people were surprised by the devastation that happened. First, I compliment not the Government response but the community response from contractors and farmers who went out with their tractors and loaders the following morning. Over a two-day period, they cleared all the roads. In actual fact, in some areas councils were not out until 4 o'clock in the evening, which is regrettable, because local communities had done the work to shift trees out of the way. The devastation was huge - no water, no electricity and people cold in their houses. I compliment the ESB on the amount of work it has done. The sickening fact is that I talked to a contractor who was bringing poling lorries from England.

These lorries came to Holyhead but were not able to get on to the boat because the customs here were holding them up through paperwork. This is what Ireland did in an emergency. They had to drive from Liverpool to Scotland and they lost a day in doing their work. Someone somewhere should have written an order stating that, in an emergency, these lorries should be let through.

It was as if people around this country, and in the west of Ireland especially, did not exist. There was no communication, phones did not work, there was no broadband and everything was in total disarray. The sad part about it is that the likes of the Red Cross or the Army were not called out. The elderly were abandoned, as were people with underlying health problems. We had to get generators to get people up to hospital beds. That is the type of devastation there was. Young kids being brought home after being born and people with sleep apnoea were left high and dry, as were schools.

We have talked about water. Irish Water had no plan for this. It had no plan whatsoever with regard to generators. As for group water schemes, in all fairness I must compliment Mike Sheil, as well as the federation, including Karen in our area, which started making contact and trying to get generators out. Design, build and operate, DBO, suppliers, such as Veolia Ireland, decided to sit on their hands for a few days until they were kicked around the place to try to get up and running. That should never be accepted. If we learn one thing, it is the common denominator that has caused this problem. Yes, everyone knows it was a storm. Yes, everyone knows it was one of the worst we have ever had. What was the big problem? Throughout this country, one can see the corridors that have been left in forests. Forests have caused huge problems right around this country. The corridors are not 35 m on each side and the trees have taken down the main three-phase lines. Throughout the countryside, trees everywhere have knocked down wires but, on top of that, they have devastated broadband services. We have spent a great deal of money on broadband right around this country. The trees have devastated and made bits of the NBI broadband system.

As for the likes of Eir, some factories might have more people working in them than that company has today. It is hard to get Eir to fix a phone, never mind getting it to start putting this together. It needs to do this fairly rapidly, and I think the Government needs to make it do it.

Farmers were left without water but there are things we need to do. We need regulation on trees. In the line of farmers, we need to ensure funding is provided to replace sheds that were taken away. Sheds just disappeared in some places. The horticultural sector was affected as well. We do not need task forces and reviews. Farmers, communities, Tidy Towns committees that will collect debris, councils, communities and people who had to pay extra money for food need pounds, shillings and pence, They do not need a review or task force or something down the road. This work has to start now. There are cattle in sheds that do not have a roof over their heads. There are cows which will be calving soon where the cowshed is gone. This is where we need action. There is a generator grant through the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, but it needs to be for the normal generator. We need to get water infrastructure, schools, crèches and all of that covered to ensure we have backup.

Inspections in the agricultural sector should be suspended for one month, rather than being given a promise that the inspectors will go easy. As for the agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES, where fences to neighbouring farms have been brought down, inspections under the scheme should be abandoned for the next three months. If we do not do that, we will kick the people who have suffered torture.

In forestry, corridors need to be provided. Forests planted 20, ten or five years ago were have been destroyed. The windblow is unbelievable right throughout forestry. It is estimated that 40% of forestry in this country is in trouble.

What are we going to do? We are going to get Teagasc and a few others to meet up, have a bit of a chat and a cup of tea and we will talk about it next week or the week after. This is about money. This is about people who could not cook in their houses and had to buy meals out. They had to rent accommodation. They have paid out the money. I welcome what the Minister, Deputy Calleary, did in respect of providing support to stay in hotels but that should have been done the first day. People needed to know. There are huge question marks. Elderly people who have trees in their gardens do not know if they will get funding from the humanitarian fund. The one thing we need to do is to provide a huge amount of funding for councils to try to undo the hanging branches and what is going on around them.

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