Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies Connolly and Daly. This is my first time engaging with Deputy Connolly, and I congratulate him on his election to Dáil Éireann. I look forward to working with him.

I take the point. As he said, we might contest the views of some, but regardless of whether we contest them, I accept they are the deeply held views. It is exactly how people felt in large parts of this country. I have heard very clearly from people in the west and the north west how they felt extremely isolated and anxious and they wondered whether the electricity was ever going to come back on. Whatever about managing without electricity or water for a day or two, which is not an insignificant challenge, the number of people who had to manage for many weeks is almost unimaginable in terms of the gravity of the challenge that posed.

As a Government, as State agencies and as community organisations, everybody put their shoulder to the wheel. We saw the best of Irish meitheal in terms of people trying to respond. We saw the benefits of the investment we made over a number of years in community facilities. In many parts of the country we had sports club with shower facilities and others that were readily made available to communities. I thank those sports clubs for that. We saw the Civil Defence, of which I am proud to be a Minister, play a very boots-on-the-ground role. I saw the Defence Forces respond to every request that was made of them. The way it works is the Defence Forces responds to requests from the civil authority and local authorities. In fairness to everyone - I am not blaming any local authorities; everyone was working hard - there was a technical expertise element that was perhaps not readily available to the Defence Forces in some of the issues that would have been pressing to the Deputies' constituents.

To be very clear, the State has to do better and be better prepared for adverse weather events. That is why the Taoiseach, others in government and I are determined that the "lessons learnt" thing is not just a box-ticking exercise, but is actually a deep dive into what went well, where went well, because it was not consistent across the country, and what can go better. The Defence Forces will be very willing to play a full and honest role in that assessment.

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