Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. I commend the men and women of the emergency services, ESB, Uisce Éireann crews and council staff, all of whom worked tirelessly to deal with the aftermath of the most recent storm. I say a special word of thanks to volunteers from the GAA and other sports clubs, community centres and men's and women's sheds and all sorts of groups who came together and worked hard to set up community hubs and bring a small piece of relief to communities left devastated by the aftermath of the storm.

Thankfully, for most people impacted by any storm, the ordeal ends without too much delay; for some, however, it endures. For many, it endures for far too long. While neither the Government nor any State agency can predict the exact pathway and detail in advance, we know extreme weather events are the inevitable result of climate change. The Government cannot claim to have been surprised by an extreme weather event because it knows these weather events will occur.

Now we come to the Government's favourite part of every crisis - the lessons that have to be learned. We have heard it from its spokespersons again and again in the aftermath of any storm or extreme weather event. "Lessons will be learned", they say. Maybe someone can explain why the lessons learned from Storm Babet were not incorporated into the response to Storm Éowyn. The humanitarian assistance scheme should include businesses, sporting clubs and voluntary organisations, as well as community groups impacted by the storm.

I urge the Minister to support the motion and send an important message to those communities who feel they have been forgotten by the Government. People have been left for days and weeks with no connectivity, completely cut off, like Emma Ward, who I have spoken about previously. Emma needs power for her wheelchair. She said she had never felt so forgotten in all her life as while she waited and waited. She could not use her power wheelchair and could not get to college. It effectively meant she was cut off completely. She said to the Government directly that she had never felt so forgotten in all her life. The Minister well knows how young people with disabilities are treated by the Government and the State so he can imagine how Emma felt when she said she had never felt so forgotten in her life.

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