John Ellis (Fianna Fail)

Like my colleagues, I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, and in so doing acknowledge his actions and those of all the other Ministers involved, including the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, and the Taoiseach, in going to see immediately what the problems were on the ground. It was not a case of going when the floods had subsided. They all are to be complimented. I sympathise with householders, businesses, farmers, travellers in trying to get from A to B and everybody who has been affected by the floods and inconvenienced by what has happened in the past week. I also compliment the emergency services, as I did this morning. I particularly compliment the staff of Leitrim County Council who stayed at work yesterday when they should have been on strike and who prevented the town of Carrick-on-Shannon from becoming a total disaster zone. The same may be said for towns such as Leitrim. The people concerned have shown their commitment to the community and that there will be no backing off when they are needed. We also must compliment the Army personnel who did tremendous work wherever they were called out. On radio this morning Councillor Kevin "Boxer" Moran complimented them on the work they had done in Athlone. The Defence Forces, Civil Defence and other groups have put in a tremendous effort in the past week, especially over the weekend.

We now face the problem of what can be done in the aftermath. We must look to the future, as we can do nothing about what happened yesterday or the current floods. There are a number of things that can be done. The Minister of State outlined proposals to provide various defences which would help to alleviate the problem, but there are many actions that could be taken that would have helped to prevent some of the problems we are facing.

The ESB controls a number of major rivers and sets the levels it wishes to maintain for generation purposes. Is it right in August and September when it knows what average rainfall will be that it should allow what it sees as surplus water to be dispersed into the ocean? This issue must be looked at. There was a Shannon forum among other fora that discussed such matters, but they never led to action being taken. They discussed and debated the issue, but nobody came to an agreement because what the OPW wanted was not agreeable to the ESB and what Inland Waterways of Ireland wanted was not agreeable also. Then there were, as the Minister of State mentioned, certain vested interests who were responsible for protecting flowers, fauna, bird life and other matters. The latter should be protected, but should it be at the expense of John and Mary citizen? We must take the decision and come down in favour of citizens because they have suffered as a result of the floods. If common sense is applied, in most of these cases the matter will be resolved. People who are totally committed beyond reason on one side or the other of the argument are a menace to the cause they promote because they prevent us from going anywhere.

I appeal that we go about setting up a body to take responsibility for dealing with flooding problems. I am not a lover of quangos, as I have stated on numerous occasions, but this is a matter on which we need to have co-ordination between local authorities, local interests, whether business or otherwise, the ESB, householders and community representatives. Many in our communities have been pointing to some of these problems for years, but nobody is prepared to take them on because it is not the responsibility of the county council, the ESB or the OPW. There is a need for a new body to be put in place. In addition, when it comes to the winter months the group responsible for the particular river should meet on a weekly basis. There now are excellent weather forecasting capabilities. With the weather forecasts over the weekend we were able to pinpoint the areas that would be affected.

The Minister of State mentioned Cockermouth in Cumbria. I spoke to Lord Dubs who lives there at a British-Irish interparliamentary meeting on Monday in Wales. He told me they knew exactly what would happen. They had done whatever they could but they had to put up their hands and state they could not do anymore. The weather forecast should show where the rainfall will be heaviest. It singled out Galway and Cumbria as the areas which would be hardest hit during the week, with counties Cork, Kerry and Limerick. This shows we are now in a position to forecast where there will be serious problems. If the ESB had moved in two weeks ago and allowed the extra reservoir water to escape, there would at least have been that much more capacity for the deluge that came afterwards. The ESB has traditionally used Lough Allen as one of its dams and there is another weir south of Carrick-on-Shannon, which it uses to keep up the volume. Anyone who was around Carrick-on-Shannon two weeks ago knew that it was up to the maximum level and that something needed to be done in case of flooding, such as we have had. We must tackle this matter as a priority. We all saw the Inniscarra dam on television earlier this week, as well as Meelick and the others, but there must be proper co-ordination when dam waters are released. There is less danger of Ireland running out of water to run Ardnacrusha or other hydroelectric stations than anywhere else in the world. We must take on the ESB in this regard. I am not being critical of the ESB, but it must act for the greater good. In September, the ESB allowed the water north of Meelick to rise by three feet, which did untold damage to farmland and the Shannon Callows in County Offaly. There is no need for that, however, because we do not suffer from drought in this country. We must examine what must be done to co-ordinate the flood management plan.

I am sure that local authorities are sweating at the moment because they forced people to build houses on low-lying ground, because they would affect the skyline if they were built on higher ground. The net result is that many such houses have been written off. It is terrible to think that this has happened. In some cases, planners have been irresponsible as regards where they forced people to build. In other cases, they have been irresponsible in allowing people to build on flood plains. It might have been attractive for them in some cases because the rates base was being increased and they were getting plenty of rates and development charges. The net result, however, is that the people concerned now own worthless properties.

We know they will not get insurance in future, so does it mean they will be forced out of business because they cannot get cover? We will all have to pay for insurance whether or not we claim. We need to examine the possibility of some sort of State insurance scheme to deal with those who cannot obtain cover. Some years ago, the State intervened to ensure young drivers could get insurance cover. A similar intervention will be required now, whereby people could pay into a State policy to cover their potential losses as a result of flooding.

The State is providing approximately €12 million as an initial allocation to deal with the flood problems: €10 million for householders and €2 million for farmers. I hope that common sense will prevail when it comes to paying this money to those who need it. I remember the famous fodder vouchers when farmers claimed for feed they had never lost. We do not want to see that happening again, but neither do we want to see a situation develop where people are prevented from getting the necessary funding to survive.

The Minister of State has outlined that in future we will have to take an overall view of the entire position. We will not be able to solve every problem in every townland, but we will have to tackle the major difficulties. Let nobody say county councils cannot identify the flash flood points that will arise in future, because they have all come up this week.

Another aspect has caused untold environmental damage, although people may not realise it. Many of the soak-holes or soak-pits in drained-off land are now filled with plastic fertiliser bags. They are not biodegradable, so they are still causing serious problems in preventing drainage. I know the Minister of State is sympathetic to these proposals. We need to examine the flooding flash-points and how the ESB has reacted in managing the waterways it controls. While there has not been a word of criticism against the OPW, it might well look at returning to some of the small arterial drainage projects, which would help to alleviate flash flooding in some areas. Such work would allow water to escape as quickly as possible.

We extend our sympathy to those affected by the floods and hope that we will not get the downpour that is threatened for the coming weekend. In some areas it can take up to a week for the real damage to become apparent, while in others the flooding can disappear within 24 hours. As far as the upper Shannon is concerned, it takes a week before it really starts to hurt, and the same problem applies further down the Shannon.