Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend the motion brought forward by Deputy O'Reilly. The point has been clearly made that there is great frustration at the rate of payout under the humanitarian assistance scheme. In my county of Cork, of the 102 claims made, only 19 were paid out, which is a similar rate to the rest of the country. For those affected, it is far too slow and a cause of great frustration. There are issues in terms of people making claims and not being properly remunerated.

A point I have made before is the need for compensation for clubs, businesses, sporting organisations and community groups. I raised this issue because a number of clubs in my constituency, including Everton AFC and Ballyphehane GAA Club, had goalpost nets, dugouts and buildings damaged by the storm. The response we keep getting is that there is a programme for Government commitment to look at a scheme. That frustrates me for a number of reasons. First, a scheme was opened for sports clubs, community organisations and business in the aftermath of Storm Babet. There was no need for legislation at that stage. I do not understand the delays now unless there is just a desire not to act. It seems hard to imagine the commitment in the programme for Government being implemented. I could be wrong about this, and perhaps the Minister will tell me I am wrong, but it is hard to imagine that whenever a scheme comes to pass, in a year, a year and a half or whenever it is, that clubs and organisations that faced significant costs due to Storm Éowyn, for which they had to fundraise using energy they could have put into other things, will be able to seek compensation after the fact at some point in the future. That seems unlikely. It was very disappointing that the Department of enterprise did not open a scheme when it had every ability to do so. At this stage, while the storm is not completely out of our memory and while the costs arising from it are still being faced, and not only for clubs and organisations in my constituency, I urge the Minister to encourage the other Department to open a scheme to ensure that organisations which saw those kinds of costs can be fairly compensated.

See this speech in context