Mike Kennelly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and congratulate him and his predecessor, the Minister of State, Deputy Kieran O'Donnell, who was in that seat before him. I thank him for the work he has done with the OPW in the communities that I represent and that have been devastated by recent storms.

This morning I ask the Minister of State to make a statement on the minor flood relief scheme for the Listowel and Killocrim areas. Over the past few years, Listowel has been a lightning rod for flood events. Following on from serious flood events in the Clieveragh area of Listowel, as the Minister of State will be aware, the OPW is currently finishing a minor flood relief scheme of up to €1.3 million to ensure previous damage to homes, lives and businesses is not repeated. I thank the Minister of State and the Government for these works.

However, with our ever-increasing erratic weather patterns, flooding and wind damage are becoming all too common. The Killocrim and Listowel areas were hit by Storm Bert on 23 November, which caused severe flooding. The River Feale overflowed reaching record heights surpassing 4.2 m, the highest levels since records began in 1946. This unprecedented flood submerged large areas of Listowel, again destroying more than 70 homes and businesses and causing significant damage to the famous the Listowel Racecourse. I stated before that the emergency response went from saving homes to saving lives. This was weeks out from Christmas, families were left homeless and a full clean up began. Costs were applied for through humanitarian aid.

One of the biggest concerns post the flooding was the fact that this perfect storm, which it has been identified as, hit without warning. A warning should have informed residents down the river that the levels were the highest ever seen. The emergency response teams and the public need to be made aware, through an early warning system via community text messaging, of any such future events so that personal protective equipment, PPE, can be deployed in time. This will play a crucial role in ensuring that homes are protected. In regard to the PPE, it takes 15 minutes to deploy one of these at either a front or back door or a main gate. For a person living alone to put these in situ and prevent a home from being destroyed, it takes an hour to deploy four of them, so that warning has to come before the event for this to happen.

People are living in real fear that this can happen at any time. Indeed, three weeks after Storm Bert, the threat and anxiety levels were again high as there was a snow and yellow rainfall alert. Thankfully, Kerry County Council, on that morning, delivered to the Killocrim community, which was led by the locals and Michael Brosnan, a total of 1,000 sandbags to the areas highlighted by the locals. Local knowledge was the key here as to the areas of greatest concern of breaking their banks again.

From that event, Kerry County Council commissioned a report on the flooding in conjunction with the Department, the OPW and with local community knowledge. To date the promised works have not commenced. I ask the Minister of State, on behalf of the people who cannot sleep at night, and I am not making this up, to take away and relieve the anxiety that their homes could be destroyed again in the blink of an eye. I look forward to the Minister of State's statement.