Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I was on RTÉ radio at the weekend and I heard about the case of a young woman who has a dialysis machine and who was left at home. She had to make her own arrangements to get somewhere in order that she could access electricity to run her machine. We need the HSE and GPs to be involved. GPs indicated that they were not contacted. It is clear that there are major gaps. While the Minister may say that the Government has a plan, either it was not followed or it was not sufficient to deal with the disaster that unfolded. Significant work must be done to resolve matters.

Given that so many people felt both left behind and not listened to and because there are so many people who have their own experiences and who can, from their perspective, highlight the gap in the response, what we need to do is have a really good engagement with people. A good way of doing this would be to have a special Oireachtas committee. I am not sure if that is something the Minister would consider. It would be a really useful exercise because we could engage with communities, stakeholders and the public and ask them what they would like to see happen next time and what would have helped them on this occasion. We could bring in all the agencies and ask what did they did and what they could have done better. That is the kind of rigorous analysis we need. I ask that the Government consider what I am proposing. It would be a useful exercise.

Just before the Minister of State for heritage contributes, I want to comment on the immediate response in the context of how we will deal with such an event in the future. In the context of adaptation, there was mention of potential flooding events. We need to start looking at nature-based solutions to deal with such events. Nature will tell us very quickly where we have gone wrong. We can try to engineer our way out of much of this stuff but that is just not going to work. We really need to focus on adaptation and on how we can actually work with nature to adapt better to these kind of events, particularly when it comes to issues like flooding. I will be talking to the Minister about this in the future. The Arterial Drainage Act - we obviously had a great deal of discussion about this on the climate committee - needs to be reformed. A focus should be placed on doing that. If we are talking about flood prevention and managing our land better, it is something we should certainly consider.

On farmers, we talk a lot about a fair transition and how we can assist different communities in making the changes we need them to make. However, we also need to talk about fair transition in the context of how we can support them when events like this happen and we see the significant impact of climate change on certain communities. When it comes to our agricultural community, particularly the horticulture sector, and the impact of this event, there is a real need to evoke the principle of fair transition and support those involved to deal with the aftermath.

I spoke to quite a few horticulturists who had major damage done to polytunnels and to glasshouses. Many of them cannot get insurance and many will struggle to get their crops out this year. That is a key area on which the Government needs to focus. The programme for Government, like the motion, refers to an extreme weather event assistance scheme. I welcome that scheme. It is an important initiative, but it will be designed as we move forward. I ask that the first pilot relating to that scheme be targeted at the horticulture sector.

Its members play such a huge part in our food security. They create thousands of jobs and add a lot of value to our economy but they are also a part of our agricultural sector that struggles. They live on very tight margins and I fear this storm may have been so catastrophic for some of them that they may find it very difficult to get past it. Will the Minister provide supports to them? That scheme is a good idea if he could get it up and running quickly and ensure they could be the first beneficiaries but, if not, some assistance must be given to them to enable them to get through this period. I thank Sinn Féin for bringing this motion forward. It is a very important discussion we are having. We need to have more of these discussions to make sure that when the next event happens we are as prepared as possible to withstand it and that our communities are as supported as possible so that we do not see the kinds of impacts on people that we have seen over the past couple of weeks.

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