Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)

I appreciate the Deputy has raised this issue in terms of broader local authority financing and, specifically, in terms of Storm Éowyn. I will engage with the Minister for housing on this. Overall, in the past five years, significant resources have been allocated to local authorities. That has to be acknowledged. It is quite substantial on many fronts and a lot of work has been enabled because of that. However, demands, services and so on have created additional expenditure obligations. We are working with the Departments of Social Protection and community and rural development in respect of resourcing hubs and networks to deal with future storms. We saw in some areas where such networks were established that they were effective and played a huge role in helping the communities. I will come back to the Deputy on the specifics of reimbursement.

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