Deputy Dukes gave me notice of his intention to raise on the Adjournment the need to provide adequate funds to meet the needs of the areas adversely affected by coastal damage and flooding caused by the recent storms and intemperate weather.
Adjournment Debate. - Coastal Damage and Flooding.
I am bound to say, and I hope the Chair will not think ill of me for doing so, that I think it is wrong that we should be having the usual Adjournment Debate this evening on this topic. It is my belief, and that of my colleagues in my party, that this matter merited a great deal more, and more detailed consideration than can be given to it in the space of ten minutes. However, I should like to thank the Chair for allowing me this opportunity at least.
We are dealing with the result of a series of storms that have hit our coast and the country since the middle of December. We have had a succession of storms since 15 December which have wreaked havoc around the country. I should like to catalogue some of the more visible damage that has been done. The damage can be found around our coast. It can be found in Arklow, where I spent some time this morning looking at the effects of storm damage on the north beach and on the harbour. We have all seen the pictures of the damage done at Kilmore Quay where the sea wall was broken and a number of fishing boats wrecked while in the harbour. Many boats were damaged and a great many of them have since been forced to use other ports because they cannot use their home port. Damage has been caused in Dungarvan, and Tramore is in a extremely bad state. The harbour and the pier at Ballycotton were damaged. There was damage at Union Hall and at Sligo. There are many examples around our coast of the effects of the storms.
We have had floods throughout the country. We have had flooding in the Shannon Basin. The area south of Athlone has now become a new lake. That flooding extends along the east side of the Shannon and through the midlands. We have seen flooding in areas where it has rarely been known before. We have seen pictures of Carlow town where people have had to instal walk boards along the two sides of the street. The county council are providing a shuttle service with a tractor and trailer to get people from one end of the town to the other. We have seen pictures of floods running through the streets of Clonmel. There are floods along the Lee Valley in Cork. I will use my influence to get a boat for the Ceann Comhairle when he is going home at the end of this week's session.
In all those areas we have seen the effects of storm damage and rising water. In fact, in many places we are not equipped to deal with the problems. Livelihoods have been put at risk. A good part of our fishing fleet has been tied up because of the storms, and those families are facing the results of a substantial period without any income. That is not to speak of the skippers who have seen their boats destroyed or severely damaged. We have seen farms flooded to an extent that has not been seen for more than 30 years. Whole townlands are under several feet of water and the farmers will be unable to carry out their normal farming operations for some months to come. There are people in the constituency of the Minister for Education who put up with this year in and year out but their problems are being experienced on a much wider scale than has been seen for a long time.
Businesses throughout the country have had to close up for several days. It will take some of them quite a long time to get over the effects of flood damage on their stocks and machinery. Many homes have been flooded. One of the most eloquent testimonies of what that does was visible in a picture shown the other night of an elderly lady in the upstairs room of her house in Clonmel. She has been confined there for a number of days because nobody can get in or out of the House. She certainly cannot get in or out. In Blarney, for example, a local authority estate of 65 houses has been flooded. Examples can be multiplied and found all around the country.
What has been the response to this so far? I have to say that the response has been absolutely pitiful. The Government have made some money available. They have made money available, for example, to Kilmore Quay but the amount made available will go nowhere near repairing the damage to the sea wall. It is not just the problem of repairing that damage that we have to look at. Kilmore Quay is a good example of where protective works have been breached. The normal action of the tide on unprotected areas inside will continue to cause more damage. The rising and falling of the tides for as long as those protective works remain broken will continue to cause difficulties, create more damage and build up more difficulties and, potentially, more future cost in dealing with it. A tiny fraction of the amount of money required has been made available to a couple of the places that have been badly hit. There has been nothing for most of our coast and nothing at all for areas inland that have been subjected to flooding.
We learned this afternoon that a Cabinet committee is being set up. Four Ministers will sit down and consider what might be needed. That is the classic placatory delaying tactic. It is a substitute for action. God knows we have seen the Government set up committees to beat the band. We had two more in the health sector last week. Every time a problem comes up we seem to get a new committee. There has been a refusal to engage in a debate on this issue tonight. The Government do not like debate. They do not seem to want to talk about anything in the House. They do not seem to want to hear what the House has to say or can offer by way of advice. I wonder why? Is it because they do not like talking about these things? Is it because they are shy? Is it because they do not have anything to say? Or is it because — this is probably the real explanation — they do not have any understanding of the scale of the problem that has hit the country in the last two months?
The Government dropped from their application for Structural Funds any effort to put together a programme of coastal protection. That was a deliberate decision taken by the Government. They had it in mind at one stage to include coastal protection works in their application for EC funds but, for some unexplained, incomprehensible reason that has been dropped. That, in the light of what has happened in the last two months, can only be described as total ineptitude. The last straw came today. I could not believe my ears when I heard the following and I asked one of my press office staff to ring RTE to check it. The announcement was made that Commissioner MacSharry had made the princely sum of £120,000 for the relief of what he called hardship caused by storm damage. He has offered £120,000 when thousands and thousands of acres around the country are flooded. My goodness, one would not pay the man one year for that sum. Not content with keeping farm incomes permanently down by keeping his thumb firmly on farm prices he is now going out to insult us by making £120,000 available to resolve this problem.
Let us look at what is needed. It is clear that the 1963 Act is not the answer to this problem. The 1963 Act allows local authorities to declare an emergency. National Exchequer funds will be made available but local authorities up to now have had to provide 50 per cent of the money themselves. That is, for all practical purposes, a dead letter because local authorities do not have discretionary funds available to them on anything like the scale that is required here. I saw one example of it this morning. For some of the work that needs to be done in Arklow money has been made available from central funds, but Wicklow County Council have had to raise a loan of £500,000 to add to it and Arklow Urban District Council are faced with the prospect of raising a loan of £500,000. They will not be able to pay the interest on it.
What we need to do, therefore, is to make available a realistic amount of funding to deal with immediate repairs to protective works so that the long-term work can be put in hand later. We need an action programme to cover all the principal coastal protection works that are needed and all the principal protection works that are needed in our main inland waterways. It is clear that we need protective work, preventive work, on the Shannon and on the Lee and one or two other major watercourses. When we put that programme together we need to urgently put together an application for funds from the European Community's Structural Funds, out of the unallocated £3.5 billion that remains to be spent for the current period. If that work is not put in hand very quickly we will see continuing damage where protective works have been breached, and we will see continuing damage to the economy of many areas of this country, to tourism and to agriculture, because of the effects of continued flooding.
I would like to hear from the Minister for the Environment, goodness knows, I doubt that he has much of a concrete nature to offer us—if I may coin a phrase and use a pun — but I would like to see the dawning realisation on the part of the Government that there is a problem here that will not go away and that needs to be addressed urgently.
We can all appreciate the extent of the recent flooding. We have all witnessed in our own constituencies some of the worst effects of the continuing storms and flooding. We can all readily join with the Leader of the Opposition in sympathising with all those who have suffered losses because of these floods and storms, and as a Government, we are anxious to help in any way we can.
First, I would like to refute any suggestion of a lack of concern on the part of the Government for the plight of people affected by the very severe weather which has been hitting the country over the past couple of months. The House will be aware that the Taoiseach announced earlier today the setting up of a Cabinet subcommittee to examine and report on the extent and impact of the recent storm and flood damage as a matter of urgency. The subcommittee will comprise the Ministers for Finance, the Marine, the Environment and Agriculture and Food whose Departments have the appropriate expertise to assess the various forms of damage which has occurred. It is grossly unfair of Deputy Dukes to criticise the Government for setting up this sub-committee at this time. Had we not done so, he would have been in here pillorying me and the Government for not taking that action. When we do the proper thing I think it is encumbent upon the Leader of any Opposition Party to be generous enough——
Funds are what are necessary.
——to accept and to admit that we are addressing the difficulties in a proper fashion by using the Minister's offices and the expertise available in the Department to deal with the matter in an effective way.
I promise never to criticise the Minister for not setting up a committee.
In so far as my own immediate area of responsibility is concerned, may I remind the House that following detailed assessments by the relevant local authorities and by my Department of the damage caused by the storms over the October bank holiday weekend, when areas of the north east experienced extremely heavy rainfalls, and by the storms which hit the east and south coasts on 16 and 17 December, I recently notified local authorities throughout the country of road grants totalling a further £1 million by way of assistance towards the cost of remedial works to roads and bridges affected by the storms. That dealt effectively with the difficulties that arose last October and December.
Local authorities may also avail of the significantly increased discretionary grants in 1990 for regional and county roads to undertake remedial works to roads and bridges arising from the bad weather. The grants under this heading to county councils amount to over £63 million in 1990 compared with £47.4 million in 1989——
Most of them have their roads' programmes passed already.
——and £33.4 million in 1988. I would rather not embarrass the Opposition by saying the total amount of discretionary money available the last time they had the giving of it in 1986.
We are talking about now.
Serious damage along the coast has been reported following the storms of recent weeks. The first extensive damage occurred following the storms of 16 and 17 December. The south and east coasts were particularly badly hit and blackspots already inspected by representatives from the Department of the Marine included Bray harbour and the esplanade, Arklow harbour and the north beach, Kilmore Quay harbour and Rosslare Strand. The Department of Finance sanction has already been received for the expenditure of State funding on Kilmore Quay. The Minister for Finance announced a provision of £950,000 in the budget for grant assistance in respect of Arklow north beach. The Minister for the Marine gave a lengthy reply on the question of coast protection earlier today and there is no point putting it on the record again.
The House may take it that the Cabinet subcommittee will now set about their task of assessing the storm damage. For my part I have asked all the major local authorities to prepare reports in respect of damage to public roads and bridges and, if relevant, to water and sewage installations. The Minister for the Marine is undertaking a full review of all coast damage for the subcommittee and the Minister for Agriculture and Food is having the farming position monitored and will be attending to that matter later this week.
Indeed, we must record our appreciation to all those who helped and who are still helping in the present inclement weather conditions and the difficulties that have arisen therefrom. I pay tribute to the Garda, the Defence Forces, the fire brigade and, indeed, all those involved in the emergency services generally. I would also acknowledge my colleague, the Minister for Education — who is in the House — who played a very active and effective role in organising some of those emergency services in her own area over the weekend. I would like that to be recorded here also.
Perhaps the Minister could tell us why no Structural Funds were sought to deal with coastal erosion?
Can we hear the Minister? Time is limited.
I was about to deal with that matter. All the Members of this House fully understand that we have drawn down the total maximum money available to us under the EC Structural Funds, which is £2.86 billion.
Why did the Minister leave out coastal erosion?
Not a shilling has been lost to this economy so far as the draw down of Structural Funds is concerned and the discretionary money that will be there will also be drawn down to the maximum available to this economy and we will have to make do——
What discretionary money?
The discretionary money over and above the £2.86 billion — the unallocated money as yet.
That is what I am proposing the Minister should do.
Already we have applications to draw down the maximum available to us in that area.
We will want more than £20,000.
We are treating this as an urgent matter. The Ministers involved will be giving it their personal attention and we expect to be able to report on the matter within a few weeks.
The committee will not report.
(Interruptions.)
Order, the Minister's reply concludes the debate.