Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Aontaím le cuid mhaith den mhéid atá ráite maidir leis na tuilte ar fud na tíre atá ag déanamh an t-uafás damáiste. I support the call for a debate on flooding, which is serious in the west, in particular, and the south. It has come to light that many of the issues arising in local areas are due to a lack of maintenance work being done during times when the weather is not bad.

During recent briefings given by the local authorities in Galway city and county, we heard about the frustration of the management of both authorities in respect of their lack of resources and funding as a result of all the changes introduced by this Government under the Putting People First policy of former Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Phil Hogan. I have never seen local managers as agitated as they have been in the past two to three weeks. For example, there are huge issues around housing and a lack of forward planning in terms of the hand-over of the administration of the housing assistance payment, HAP, scheme. We are told that owing to inadequate numbers of staff to handle the transfer of thousands of applicants from the Department of Social Protection to the local authorities, serious issues will arise after Christmas.

Many of the flooding issues arising in local areas are due to blocked drains and work in that regard not being done during the summer. Owing to the reduction in the number of staff on the ground and a lack of funding for maintenance work - such as drain unblocking and road-sweeping and fixing - this work is not being done. When we approach local authorities about these issues, we are told there is no money available to do the work. We are also told that Irish Water is putting pressure on the local authorities to cut job numbers and that this is likely to occur in the next couple of months. Instead of increasing staff numbers, there is a huge push to get rid of people who are working on contract for Irish Water in the local authorities.

There has been much debate in recent times with regard to housing and so on. We need to continue that debate because of the lack of social housing, the homelessness crisis and so on. Following the terrible tragedy in Carrickmines, we heard that many local authorities had returned unspent allocations for Traveller accommodation. This was refuted last week by Galway County Council. According to that council, its applications for funding under the Traveller accommodation programme were turned down. We need clarity on this issue. Somebody is not telling the full truth on these matters and we need to address that.

A debate on the issues relating to storm damage and to the need for ongoing maintenance work to be carried out between storms and for the requisite resources to be provided is vital.