Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

First of all, I thank the people of Cork North-Central for re-electing me. I am proud to be back here for a second time as a TD. I am really proud of my family, my friends and everyone who got behind me. I will work for all the constituents of Cork North-Central and of this State because we have a big job of work to do. This storm and the previous storms have highlighted the job of work that we need.

I also thank sincerely all those front-line responders - the staff of ESB, Irish Water, An Garda and local authorities - right across the board and the volunteers who came out. They have done magnificent work with one hand tied behind their back because of ESB and Irish Water and the Government's inability to plan, fund and resource these organisations. For example, the ESB made €500 million in the first six months of 2024. It will be close to €1 billion in profits when the figures are out. At the same time, it has neither maintained nor put in place structures and planning to ensure that when these storms happen there are not 13 days without power - some families will go without for longer. It is two weeks without power, in this day and age.

At the same time, we are told there is no compensation scheme for those without power. The ESB - the neck of them - is warning there could be increasing charges because of the cost of the fallout of the storm. This is from a company that is charging Irish people some of the highest electricity prices in Europe, and now it wants to put them up again. Is the Government asleep at the wheel? Fine Gael has been in government for 14 years and Fianna Fáil has been with them for ten. Not only is the Government allowing the ESB to do this, it is also allowing the ESB to do privatisation, with a reduction in the number of workers, the bringing in of more contractors and work being subbed out. Then we want to know why half the poles are down and half the country is without electricity. It is because the Government is more interested in profit and privatisation than in looking after people. There are serious questions to be answered here.

I wish all the Ministers the best in their new portfolios. The Minister for Health spoke about hospitals and our readiness and generators. To let the Minister know about hospitals, in Cork today people are told to stay away from the CUH and the Mercy Hospital accident and emergency departments because there are 69 people on trolleys in CUH and 14 in the Mercy Hospital. They are told not to go there as they are full, and we are talking about contingency plans. Thank God things were not as bad in Cork as they were in the rest of the country because we had nowhere for them to go for them. For the information of the Minister, we have a SouthDoc in Blackpool. We have the HSE telling people in Cork to go to SouthDoc and SouthDoc in Blackpool is closed. There are two SouthDocs in the city: one on Kinsale Road and one in Blackpool. The Government has closed SouthDoc in Blackpool and the Minister is coming in here now to talk about our readiness, from a hospital and health service point of view. Where are people to go? The accident and emergency departments are full. These are the facts.

Then we discuss Irish Water not having generators ready in water treatment plants. As a person who represents Cork North-Central, I can tell the Minister we have had a lack of clean water for two years. We have a situation now where a company that made €300 million in 2023 - it is making hundreds of millions of euro in profit - cannot deliver water to the people. You are in charge. What are you doing?

I listened to Deputy Dooley say that we should not blame everyone. There was a Government backbencher in here a while ago giving out that local authorities are not working together and local authorities are not doing more. The Government privatised local authorities. The Government stripped local authorities when the austerity years came in and those workers still have not been replaced. Government Deputies are coming in here saying that we should not blame the Government for that. They are in power. Who are we to blame? The buck stops with the Government. If they cannot do the job, they should get out of the way and let someone else in.

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