Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-02-05 ============================================================ Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow First, as we are not talking about this weather situation, we are not looking back; we are talking about here and now. I am conscious as we discuss this in the House today that a status orange weather warning is currently in place for counties Dublin, Wicklow, Waterford and now also County Louth. Yellow warnings are in place for nine other counties as well. On top of that, the Road Safety Authority has issued advice in the last little while asking people, particularly in the orange warning areas, but more generally as well, to try to avoid driving in impacted areas if possible today and if they do have to drive to allow significantly more time. We continue to work on this on a constant basis and have done so for what has been a prolonged period. I know well some of the communities that have been flooded, including communities in my county. The Government will do all we can to assist. We have already taken practical action in the here and now. The Minister, Deputy Peter Burke, opened a scheme for businesses to be able to get assistance and we took a decision this week to significantly increase the amount of financial assistance people can avail of, up to €100,000. There were 14 applications for that scheme when I last checked this morning. We opened the emergency assistance scheme for homeowners who have been affected and more than 100 claims have now been processed through it. Community welfare officers are on the ground helping people to avail of it and get assistance as quickly as they can. I have had a number of engagements in government this week. I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Moran, who is present in the House, for the huge amount of hard work he is putting in on the ground. He made the point to us which is worth amplifying that while a number of communities need large scale flood relief schemes - I will get to that in a moment - we cannot have a situation where there is a kind of impasse until those large scale schemes are delivered. We have to look at what can be done in the here and now. The Minister of State, Deputy Moran, made the point to me, that in such areas as Portrane, Clontarf and Listowel relatively minor works have made a real and meaningful difference. The Government's focus in the days ahead will be to work intensively with local authorities to identify what more can be done in the here and how, like AquaDams, pumps, embankments and minor works, alongside advancing the major flood relief schemes. It is not a question of blaming anyone. Met Éireann does an absolutely excellent job. There is no doubt about that, but there is a legitimate question to be asked about how we can modernise our warning systems even further. I hope the Deputy agrees with that. It should not be a partisan issue. A yellow rain warning can mean one thing if the river levels are low. It can mean a very different thing if the river levels are high. The county by county warning system can sometimes be misleading. The rain and wind do not neatly abide by county boundaries. There is a legitimate conversation to have about what more information we can put into the public domain, listening to the experts, scientists and local authorities. That is what we intend to do. More broadly, a lot of progress has been made on flood relief. There is €1.3 billion in funding in the national development plan to deliver major flood relief schemes. The OPW has already completed 56 flood relief schemes, protecting 13,000 properties and avoiding estimated damage of around €2 billion. We have seen 900 projects already funded and approved through the OPW's so-called minor works schemes. Ten schemes are under construction nationwide, including in Athlone, Crossmolina, Glashaboy, King's Island, the Morell River, Morrison's Island, the Poddle River, the River Wad, Templemore and Whitechurch. We will need, and I hope we will, have cross-party support on this. As well as doing the interim works I have mentioned, we will need to look at how we can assess this as critical infrastructure alongside a number of other areas. The Government intends to bring forward a critical infrastructure Bill. It is working around the clock on this with State agencies. I thank the people on the front line for the work they are doing in this extraordinarily challenging situation. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-05/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:36+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-05