Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail)

I wish to raise the matter of the gorse fires which swept across County Donegal and other counties in the midlands and the west in the period over the May bank holiday weekend from the end of April to 6 May.

I am glad that the Minister of State is present because he visited County Donegal, for which I wish to thank him, when he saw first hand the damage which had been caused. It was very extensive. The Donegal county manager, at a council meeting on Monday, outlined in detail the costs associated with the damage from the county council's point of view. He had determined that an additional cost of €400,000 would be applied to the county council for the work it had carried out in supervising and trying to put out fires and assist the local community. About 3% of the land mass of the county, or 7,700 ha, was damaged by the fires. In addition, about 550 ha of Coillte owned land was also damaged, together with three private forests in Dungloe, Portnoo and Glenties. The county council received 425 emergency calls in the six days from 30 April to 5 May and there were ten major incidents, inlcuding in Dungloe, Ballyshannon, Doochary, Ardara, Malin Head, Muckish Mountain, Buncrana, Milford and Stranolar.

I take the opportunity to thank Donegal County Council, the fire service and Army personnel, of whom 70 were deployed to assist the county council, together with two helicopter units, and all of the community representatives who worked hard to put out the fires. Small farmers with slurry tankers came to houses where fires were raging. I spent two nights assisting local people to put out fires with no more than spades and shovels to try to beat back the flames. The work was done in a unified manner between members of the community, volunteers, the county council, the Army, the Garda and Civil Defence and was second to none.

We can now reflect on what happened. It was lucky that no one was badly injured or killed. Unfortunately, one house was lost in the Ballyshannon area and an enormous amount of damage was caused to agricultural land and fencing, as well as to Coillte lands owned by the State and private forestries. The difficulty with agricultural land, in particular fencing, is that it is not covered by insurance. Therefore, farmers will receive no recompense. They will have to dig into their own pockets to replace any fencing lost. Many of the farmers I met in the past few weeks told me they did not have money to replace it.

I raise this issue in the hope the Minister of State will work closely with the IFA to try to come up with some scheme to help the farmers concerned. I am not sure if there is any scope to apply to the European Union for additional funding to provide a once off payment, given that the fires were a rare occurrence. Farmers need a little help to get back on their feet. If a compensation package was made available, they would provide some of the funds themselves and the money would be spent locally in the process creating employment in replacing fencing, as well as in local farm suppliers who would supply the material needed.

I would be going too far if I was to look for funding to replace lost grazing land. Such a scheme would not be realistic.

The position in respect of forestry land also needs to be examined. We have to try to put some plan in place in case a similar incident occurs next year or the year after. In this regard, we need to work with all of the local agencies involved. In areas where the fire service is under-resourced, perhaps volunteers, including local farmers, could be trained on a community basis to assist the fire service in a professional manner.

It is probably a reflection of weather conditions - frost and heat. Farmers will also legitimately argue - I come from a farming background - that the grazing of sheep on uplands and hills has been discontinued owing to a decision taken in the European Union. As a consequence, heather was allowed to grow, but its growth was curtailed by frost. It was almost like using a match. While we can speculate on how the fire started, we all have reached our own conclusions. I have spoken to the Garda about the matter and if there was a malicious intent in starting the fires, those concerned should face the full rigour of the law. I know the Garda is conducting an investigation. I appeal, therefore, to anyone with information to contact it because lives could have been lost.

I hope the Government will consider this issue and make an early decision on providing some compensation on a percentage basis for the replacement of fencing. I thank the Minister of State for coming into the House to reply and look forward to his response.