Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This morning, I am asking the Departments of Transport and Housing, Local Government and Heritage to come together to potentially consider providing our county councils, particularly Louth County Council, for increased or emergency funding for flooding, for audits on and cleaning of storm drains and for storm pumps.

Yesterday, we had a colossal amount of rain in north Louth and Dundalk. We have seen areas of Dundalk flooded and traffic interrupted. In the rural areas around Dundalk, a huge amount of rainfall came off the mountains. Everyone locally was living in fear. They were looking at the rain falling and asking whether their house was going to be flooded again like last year. It is nearly 12 months on, and the council has done an awful lot of work in the area. It has been fixing and rectifying roads and increasing drainage on roads over the past 12 months. However, there should be a fund ready for the councils to be able to work on mitigation and emergency flooding. I also want to highlight that Louth County Council yesterday expressed grave concerns about the network and wastewater treatment. It feels that the lack of wastewater treatment investment in Dundalk is causing flooding in the middle of housing estates.

I also seek a debate with regard to school places for children with additional needs in secondary schools in particular. An awful lot of parents have come to me over the last couple of months who are worried about their children in that transition period, maybe in fifth or sixth class, when preparing a way to get a place for them in secondary school. We have done a great deal of work in primary school to ensure we have increased school places. We now need to double down on that emphasis in respect of our secondary school places. We have clearly shown that we can do it. We just need to make sure that those children, parents and families have security and that they know what school their children are going to attend and that they can be best placed.