Road Network
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-27
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Brian Brennan (FG), Wicklow-Wexford

I welcome the Minister of State's reply. I note and respect it. As he stated clearly, they are getting substantial funding, but even prior to the storm, we felt that the funding was not enough, given that they are two quite rural counties. They are two beautiful counties but we have serious issues with roads. We felt we were underfunded before this, but what this is all about now is additional funding. That is the key. We did not feel we had enough of a budget before the storm, and that has now been exacerbated. We simply have a huge shortfall. Councillors are ringing me on a daily basis and telling me that they are getting it full on from their constituents - the people in their towns and villages - that their roads are simply impassable five months on from a storm. It is ironic that we are here on one of the hottest days of the year discussing storms, which is wrong. As sure as night follows day, some other county will be in this situation. There should be a clear strategy within Government, rather than it being pushed from the Departments of Finance and roads, to be able to deal with these issues immediately.
To be fair to the Minister of State, Deputy Moran, he came down and addressed the flooding in Aughrim and Enniscorthy. He dealt with it within weeks, if not months, but we are now standing here five months to the date it happened. I hope that no other TD will have to go through what the TDs in Wicklow and Wexford have gone through. I note that Carlow and Louth have similar issues as well. This should be addressed and there should be a clear strategy in place because this is going to happen again. It is wrong. We need to get this addressed and we also need to sit down and have a long-term solution because this will happen again in other counties. It is unfair to the people living in these areas. They have suffered enough stress due to the storm. Why should they be waiting months and months?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-27/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:04+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-27