Ciarán Cannon (Fine Gael)

I wish my colleagues, both political and administrative, a very happy and peaceful Christmas. This country has a national attention deficit disorder in that we tend to flit from one issue to another depending on what is the news of the day. Once an issue disappears from the front pages of the broadsheet newspapers and the nine o'clock news, we tend to move onto the next big thing. This day week, as we sit down to Christmas lunch or dinner, depending on what part of the country one comes from, we should pause to reflect on the many families who will not be in their homes this Christmas because their homes are still flooded and uninhabitable. People will be staying in hotels or staying with friends and will try their best to celebrate what will be a traumatic Christmas.

Early in the new year we must focus on the issue of flooding, both in solving the problem and ensuring it will not happen again but also putting in place a comprehensive compensation scheme that is not yet available to the vast majority of people.