Manus Boyle (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is very welcome. I am glad to see him in the post.

The problem I wish to raise today concerns Bridge Street, Killybegs, which was flooded in 2017. Bridge Street was also flooded on 23 and 24 November 2024. People awoke to the sound of the local fire brigade and locals knocking on the doors to get residents out. Residents could not believe their eyes. It was something one would see in a film, and that is putting it mildly. The Minister of State saw the footage on Sky and everywhere else. This was the second time it happened, and we can never let it happen again. I was on site the morning of 24 November and saw first-hand the decimation it caused. The local people got stuck in as soon as possible once the alarm was raised, and I cannot thank them enough.

Residents now cannot sleep at night when there is a weather warning. They are too afraid to go to sleep. It is March now and the sandbags are still outside the doors, believe it or not. I can show the Minister of State photographs. Some businesses have closed. The launderette was there for decades, but it closed. It served the town and the whole area from Malin Beg as far as Donegal town. It was heartbreaking for that family to have had to close. The price of what they would get would not even buy one machine. That is the reality of it all. As far as I am aware, only one person has received any funding. The rest are still waiting and that is five months later. We are here to help people, and I know the Minister of State is a man who gets stuck in and does help people. I am asking him to help the people of Bridge Street in Killybegs. It is five months on, and nobody came back to the residents to say there was a plan in place and outline what they were going to do. They now live in fear whenever there is a weather warning. I ask the Minister of State for an update on how we can get these people back to normal. Life has not been normal on Bridge Street in Killybegs since 24 November. I ask the Minister of State for a helping hand to try to get it sorted out once and for all so that this will never happen again.