I welcome the statements. I empathise with the many individuals, men, women, children, families and business owners who have been left absolutely devastated once again by the horrific impact of flooding. My constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny was hit badly again. I thank the local authorities in the area and roads crew in both Carlow and Kilkenny and the fire service for the incredible work that they did. Even up until today, they are still dealing with the fallout and the damage from the floods regarding the roads and the road repairs. It truly was a significant incident that occurred there in past couple of weeks. The Minister of State is 100% behind this, but the Government has to deliver big progress on flood relief schemes and flood warning systems. The past couple of weeks have seen huge flooding and significant flooding in some areas, including the flooding of homes and businesses. I am talking about places such as Graiguenamanagh, Thomastown, Inistioge, Freshford, Piltown and Ballyhale to name six in the Kilkenny side of my constituency that have been affected along with places like Clonegal in Carlow, which also have been decimated with flooding. Last week, the Taoiseach and Ministers met to consider the State's response to the extreme weather events. It was confirmed that local authorities would be given the authority to commence road repairs. The importance of these contingency funds has been mentioned by previous speakers. There are roads down my way and the Ceann Comhairle would be familiar with down in Drummond, Glynn, Ballyglisheen, Newtown and Dungarvan over to Knockroe, Clashganny and Inch. Driving on some of these roads is like being in a boneshaker. Vehicles are rattling on them. It is a pothole-ridden nightmare. Funding needs to be made available. I welcome the fact that funding is going to be made available. I would like to see the speed of which this funding can be made available to local authorities increase. The roads funding announcement was fantastic news during the week with over €1.5 billion nationally. We did well in my constituency with over €40 million, but we need this additional funding to sort out the serious damage that was done to roads during the past couple of weeks in addition to the funding that was recently announced. Graiguenamanagh Tinnahinch flood relief scheme is in tranche 1. It is progressing, albeit it has been very slow to progress the scheme. Funding was announced in 2018. Consultants were appointed in December 2020. It only managed to go to planning in December 2025. That is an awful long time to go from appointing design consultants to putting in for planning. I implore the Minister of State to try to speed up the planning process to get these schemes approved. It took five years to get to that stage. I know there are environmental studies to be done, and I get all of that. Human life is more important than fish life. Human life is more important than a snail's life. We can have all studies in the world, but when we sit down with somebody whose home has been ravaged by water. While the rain might have subsided, the smell and the damage lasts for weeks and weeks. The Minister of State knows that because he very kindly came down to my own hometown of Graiguenamanagh and he saw the damage that has been caused first hand. The people affected are still dealing with that today. I acknowledge and welcome the funding and humanitarian aid that a lot of people are applying for. The fact that it was increased as well is a positive step. However, we need to make sure that we put flood defences in place that mean these issues are not going to happen again. The Graiguenamanagh flood relief scheme is with An Coimisiún Pleanála. I ask the Minister of State to try his best to speed that up and pull out whatever stops he needs to do to get this scheme over the line so that construction can start and we can get the flood relief scheme in place to sort that issue out. A big challenge I have if I look at the OPW and Kilkenny, we have two people appointed by Kilkenny County Council to deal specifically with flood relief schemes. I would love to see a situation where schemes can run parallel. For example, we have Graiguenamanagh in tranche 1. We have six schemes in total identified in Kilkenny but they are not running concurrently. I understand that there is a financial commitment required in terms of the capital infrastructure, but surely there is a way we can progress these schemes with the consultation part and the studies part. This is not to get to the construction or to finality but to get them going meaning that when the funding is there these projects can start straightaway. For example, Thomastown is stuck in a rut. It is not going to get sorted any time soon. These schemes take a while. I ask the Minister of State to consider starting to get the ball rolling on these schemes in terms of the consultation piece to get them to a stage where they are ready to go to tender. He is familiar with Inistioge. He visited it in 2018 while he was Minister of State with responsibility for the OPW. The hurling pitch in Inistioge and the village once again was flooded along with Thomastown and Graiguenamanagh. I visited Inistioge and I spoke with a lot of the locals. I looked at the hurling pitch. It was like looking out into the Irish Sea. The water was up nearly as far as the crossbars. We cannot have situations where this continues and continues. The Minister of State's heart is in the right place. He is doing everything he can, but we need to see speed and delivery on these schemes. The people, families, homes and businesses who are affected by flood relief are sick and devastated. They are living in fear. Every single time there is a shower of rain coming or a couple of days of rain they are thinking, "Oh my God, are we going to get flooded this time?" I want to pay tribute again to both local authorities in my constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny for the tremendous work they did providing sandbags, making sure that people were looked after, helping people evacuate their homes and helping them to save as much furniture and so on as they could. Funding constraints are not the biggest problem here. The Minister of State has strongly come out pointing out that there is €1.3 billion put aside for flood relief schemes until 2030. The money is there. We just need to see a little bit more speed. I acknowledge that there are processes that need be followed but we need speed and urgency. We need to bypass some of the stuff because human life is more important than fish life. There has been huge community engagement over the past number of years on some of these schemes. I implore the Minister of State to ensure these schemes to run concurrently and to get to a stage. We can worry about the specific funding and allocation once we get approval. Let us get these schemes agreed, designed and ready to go, then we can look for the funding. There is a lot of co-ordination among different agencies required but let us start the ball rolling now and let us not be in a situation in a couple of years where we are back here. Addressing these issues requires a multifaceted approach that includes sustainable development practices, adequate funding for infrastructure, active community engagement and effective public awareness campaigns. However, these schemes are so important. These schemes are giving hope to people in Carlow, Kilkenny, Thomastown, Inistioge, Graiguenamanagh, Ballyhale, Piltown and Freshford, to name just a few. We are looking for the Minister of State's support to get these over the line as quickly as possible.

Sentiment score: 0.18