As the Minister of State has been hearing, the rainfall we have had in recent weeks - it was raining when I was coming in here today, so we may not be past it yet - has caused considerable damage to homes and businesses, including in my constituency of Dublin Rathdown. This intense rain flooded areas including Clonskeagh, Nutgrove, Benildus Avenue, Aiken Village in Stepaside and Cookstown Lane in Kilternan. The local wastewater systems were completely overrun. Those whose homes had not been damaged by the floods found themselves caught in gridlocked traffic, blocked roads and public transport cancellations. We all know it rains a lot in Ireland. We accept that, but we cannot accept allowing our city to come to a grinding halt every time there is heavy rain, no matter how unusual it is. Unfortunately, as several other people have said here today, it is not unusual anymore. Met Éireann is repeatedly warning us that due to climate change, storms and intense bursts of heavy rain are going to become the norm. Our Departments, State agencies and local authorities need to work together to figure out how to improve our flood defences now so that we are not all back here again next year having the same conversation. Two weeks ago, I visited homes and businesses in Kilternan. They have already started to repair and rebuild after the heaviest rains have subsided. I spoke with the builders the day I visited and they told me they are working 12 hours a day to repair those homes to allow the families to come back. It was raining very heavily on that day as well. They are working really hard. The builders and the families are also frustrated because they are rebuilding what they had just built in the first place. These were homes in Cookstown Lane that people had only moved into in the last year. They had only decorated them in the last few months. Their frustration is accentuated by the concern that they could end up doing all of this again next winter if we do not have mitigation systems in place. I acknowledge that the Government has done a lot to try to prepare for flooding. I particularly praise the Minister of State for increasing the maximum funding for a minor flood mitigation works project from €750,000 to €2 million last year. It is good to make the funding available, but money alone will not get the solutions in place without having boots on the ground and getting the works done. I was very disappointed to discover that my own local authority, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, has had just six successful minor works applications in the last ten years. This is despite the fact that many areas only escaped flooding this time because the most intense rain fell on other areas just a couple of kilometres away. It was just luck this time round. Areas such as Stillorgan and Kilmacud are recognised flood risks. I know there have been multiple reports both to Uisce Éireann and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. Even with normal rainfall levels, wastewater systems have overrun on those roads and we have had water spilling out. This a very real public health risk and is doing untold damage, repeatedly, to the local environment. I know other colleagues have spoken about the unacceptable amounts of wastewater flowing into the Irish Sea after periods of heavy rain. These are localised issues, but they are feeding into the wider issue as well. Are the eligibility criteria for the minor works scheme too restrictive, given that Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has had just six successful project applications in ten years? I ask the Minister of State to review the details of the scheme. Maybe he could engage with the various authorities and relevant State agencies, which are now reviewing what they can do over the next year to try to alleviate some of these things, and see if some funding could be made available to do that. We need to develop, support and implement local flood mitigation systems. We need to look at creative solutions. We need to look at our parks, parklands and playing pitches for water attenuation schemes because these areas are becoming quite built up. My constituency of Dublin Rathdown is an area of high house building, which is what we need, but we are losing many potential water absorption areas. In conjunction with installing these flood mitigation projects, our local authorities must be increasingly conscious of the disruption that construction works cause to our natural water tables and water run-off areas. As I have said, some areas are already vulnerable to flooding but with these new developments under way, we should take a thorough look at how we can protect our new developments and prevent them from becoming vulnerable to more flooding in extreme weather conditions. We need to put in these safeguards now, as we are doing this building, so we can stop these new communities from becoming the next Cookstown Lane over the next few months. As I said, I have no desire to be standing here in a year's time talking the same talk about flooded homes, damaged businesses and communities brought to a standstill by heavy rains. Likewise, I am sure the Minister of State has no desire to listen to me do so. The Government has rightly placed a very high priority on our infrastructure. Robust flood defence systems are an integral part of our national infrastructure. As we saw all too well in the past few weeks, if our flood mitigation systems fail, so too does much of our vital infrastructure. That includes our housing and transport systems.

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