I thank the Minister of State for his recent visit to Donegal and for meeting families who are affected face to face. I really appreciated that. We missed the Minister of State when he was out of the Dáil. I will be straight about that. I said it in front of the residents when we were in Donegal. He really cares about this issue. He has experienced it in his own community and seen it at first hand. We missed him. I am going to go back to 2017. There is always flooding at certain points. Unfortunately, some very poor planning decisions were made in the past and houses were built on flood plains all across the country. That is exactly the case in the worst areas. Terrible planning decisions were made, houses were built on flood plains and we are left with the repercussions. The Minister of State came up and saw what happened in August 2017 at first hand. It was absolutely devastating. The damage done in my home peninsula of Inishowen and into east Donegal was shocking. It was a wake-up call. It is interesting. I have always worked hard as a public representative but I never put in a shift like I did in the weeks after that. I was working from literally first thing in the morning until last thing at night trying to put my arm around the community and deal with government, including local government, to try to get everything done to address families' flooding issues and the bridges, parks and football pitches that had to be repaired. It was unbelievable. I always think of that when I see other communities flooded. I have been there. I have seen it and understand it. That is why we missed the Minister of State. If he had been there during that period, we would have been on schedule now. He would have shepherded it over the line. I have no criticism of him whatsoever but the time the system takes is just too long and the interim measures that should be put in place just are not there. For the remainder of my time, I will focus on Burnfoot. As the Minister of State knows, Burnfoot is just a wee village in the south of Inishowen, not far from Derry city. Burnfoot always flooded. The houses in question were on a flood plain. Everybody knows that there are council houses and private houses that should never have been built where they were built. For God's sake, the name of the village in Irish means "the foot of the river". Before the Minister of State's time, the OPW and the then Minister did not agree to fund works. They said it would not have been economically viable. That was a mistake. The Minister of State granted funding for it and rectified the issue. However, as he has seen himself, the problem is that eight families had to leave their homes, which were council houses. Some of those families were interviewed for the Irish Times in recent days. I spoke to some of them afterwards. He met Kathleen Molloy, a fine woman and a fine spokesperson for these families. I do not think Kathleen will ever be back in her house. It is just so sad. Those families lost that connection. Kathleen is still in the local area but a lot of them lost that connection and will never go back. Somebody recently said that, when the floods come in, the media and everybody else focus on it, but, when the waters recede, so does the media attention and focus. The Minister of State is now back in the role and travelling the country. We really need to demand more of our local authorities and of the systems, including the OPW. We must drive it on as much as we can and work together with other agencies. We cannot leave people in despair for years and years. My colleague Deputy John Brady introduced a Bill on flood insurance. That should be looked at again. It might give people a degree of protection. As the Minister of State said when he was in Donegal, his job is to try to protect communities from floods and to build flood defences. There are wider issues around insurance, however. That would give people comfort. We need to look at the gaps that are lengthening the time it takes to deliver these flood defences. We need to make sure that the media attention that is on these areas for a few days never comes off as part of a drive to get things done. We need to ask local authorities all across the country to do better, working in partnership all across the country. I again thank the Minister of State.

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