Nicole Ryan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is lovely to have the Minister of State here. I will bring him back to the first week of January. In my constituency of Cork North-West, we were hit with snow, and we were one of the hardest areas that was hit. The roads were impassable and people were trapped in their homes. In Rockchapel, people had to melt snow for water. This continued for a week for them. Why is it that year after year Ireland, rural Ireland especially, is expected to make do with situations of adverse weather reactions? We saw it again with Storm Éowyn. Power was knocked out for days - we have all talked about it - water infrastructure failed, and communications were down. Instead of seeing an immediate, co-ordinated Government response, we saw local communities pick up the slack.

I commend every single person, as everybody has echoed in this House, including the volunteers, local radio stations, council workers and ESB crews, who worked really tirelessly around the dangerous conditions to restore services for people. However, community spirit alone should not have to be the solution for the Government's inaction. We talk about taking learnings from Storm Éowyn, but what learnings did we take from Storm Ophelia in 2017? I am sure a conversation along these lines was had previously. We keep talking about these learnings, but when are we going to implement them? We cannot keep treating each storm like an unprecedented once-in-a-lifetime event. I want to make it clear that the loss of life, whether it is 100 or 50 people or one person, is still a loss of life and it is unacceptable. The Government must act accordingly because the reality is that if we all did our jobs properly, people would not be suffering like they are today.