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

First, I wish the Tánaiste well in his new position. Two weeks ago tonight, the people of the west, the north west and the midlands faced one of the toughest nights of their lives with the after-effects of this storm. They are still being felt and will be felt into the future. On Saturday morning, the clean-up operation began, where local communities and contractors got together to clear roads. I compliment them and the farming community. I also compliment the ESB crews who are out day and night. The guys on the ground in the ESB are doing tremendous work. There are some things higher up the ESB might learn. I hope today, in Cloonalough in Ballinlough, a form that is to be signed to get a contractor working to cut trees will be done fairly rapidly.

We need to learn lessons from this about where things went wrong. Nobody can prevent a storm but what we need to do is put appropriate measures of mitigation in place to make people's lives a bit easier in a time like this. Unfortunately, for people with underlying health conditions, those needing hoists, people with disabilities, newborn babies, young children or people needing PEG-feeding machines or the different sleep apnoea machines, all the different types of things people need would not work. There was absolutely no communication whatsoever because phone lines were down and it was as if we did not exist for those few days. I welcome Deputy Calleary's humanitarian fund but I ask him to look at one thing. He was always at the end of a phone when wanted it, but what needs to be done is to find out what is going on. The €50 or €100 will be paid but the rest is not being done. People could not cook all week, and the cost of generators and all of that has been huge.

The Tánaiste knows I spoke within the Government talks about trees. I am a contractor myself and 95% of everything I have seen has been a problem with trees. Will the Government bring in a regulation and fund it to look after situations where trees in forestry are within 30 m or 35 m of roads or a power or communications line? Second, regarding the farming community, farmers tonight or in the past two weeks have sheds with no roofs and the cows are calving. Will a fund be brought out for that? It is ferociously important that is done. Windblown timber is also a huge problem. I do not want task forces or talking shops. The Government is talking about a task force at the moment. It is pounds, shillings and pence that people need at the moment. Will the Government enforce the issue with Irish Water? We are a local group water scheme. We had enough cop on to get generators. Irish Water is a big operation. There is no reason people should not have water in a time like this. We should have been ready for it.

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