John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Naturally enough, I will speak of the tough time people in north Louth, on the Cooley Peninsula and in certain parts of Dundalk had last week. I commend the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, and the Minister for Community and Rural Development, Deputy Humphreys. Both were on the phone to me straight away. The Minister promised that the humanitarian assistance scheme would be opened immediately.The Minister of State promised that he would come to County Louth as soon as possible and compile a full report, in conjunction with the local authority, on why this happened and why it would not happen again. The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Coveney, ensured that the business support scheme was open to help affected businesses. The Government’s quick response was important. We have set aside a substantial amount of money for these schemes. Critically, we have not allowed bureaucracy to get in the way and form filling to slow down the process. In particular, the community welfare officer was excellent in ensuring that the money got to people who needed it straight away.

I wish to discuss why this happened and how to ensure it does not happen again. Let us start with Carlingford. Trinity Close and Abbey Court were two of the worst affected estates. All of the homes there flooded. People who had built lives in their homes for the past ten or 20 years saw all of that hard work and effort wiped out by a night of flooding. The issue, and one that has been raised with me time and again across the Cooley Peninsula, is that the water had nowhere to go because the drains were blocked and the culverts were not being maintained. While we can never negate nature, we can try to mitigate its effects by looking after infrastructure properly. It must fall on local authorities to ensure that drains and culverts are clear. When this type of flash flooding happens – water came down off a mountain and had nowhere to go because the drains were not being cleared – it is frustrating for many people.

Right behind Trinity Close is a wooded area called the Manse. In recent years, many trees and hedgerows there have been cut down. They were natural flood barriers. A man-made diversion also saw a stream being completely diverted into the path of the ten to 12 houses of Trinity Close. All of this is concerning.

Some roads in other parts of north Louth have been wiped away. For example, the bridge on Deerpark Road in Ravensdale does not exist anymore. Further along the road in Ballymakellett in Ravensdale, a stream flowing off it was akin to a mudslide and destroyed many homes and gardens.

I must be considerate of the local authority’s response in these situations and ask why the Civil Defence and Army were not called in at any point to help with sandbags. Some 2,000 to 3,000 sandbags were provided to people across the Cooley Peninsula to help, but this was a major emergency and all hands should have been on deck. The level of flooding was inexcusable. The fire service told me that it had nowhere to pump the water to because this drain was blocked or that drain was full and that we just had to spend the next few days waiting for nature to take its course. It is not acceptable in this day and age that so many drains and culverts are blocked. Unblocking them would not have made what happened any better – flooding would still have been an issue – but it would have mitigated the effects. It certainly would have been helpful to many of those who were flooded in the past week and the many businesses that were destroyed.

Key now is to ensure we get the funding. Many of the applications have already been approved, which is helpful. We must get the funding to people as quickly as possible.