Mattie McGrath: Rural Independent Group urges urgent flood maintenance

I'm very sorry if you can't, Chairperson, get the name right. We're the Rural Independent Group, we sponsored the motion. Several deputies today called us the Independent Group, which Timothy Connolly is, more called us the Regional Group, and it's just splegatting. We understand flooding, and I'm not saying other people from rural areas don't either, but surely you can get our name right. We have much hope of getting the flooding sorted out if you can't get our name right, who we are. We're the Rural Independent Group, and we're proud of it. Thank you. That's what I said, Deputy Rural Independent Group. No, I said Rural Independent Group. No, I said Rural Independent Group. I'm sorry, and I just missed it. Regionally Independent Group, you said, which I'm not deaf, or am I. There are other members here too, but not only you, but other members referring to everything. We were bad enough to be hiding in the cabal that Shane Ross had in the last election. We were mixed up with them. We have a clear identity. We're rural people, we're proud of it, and we're representing rural Ireland and urban Ireland, and we're proud of that too. Can I say that I wish the Minister very well in his ministry, and I thank him for responding to areas, especially in bantering in the US Cork, and different areas during the summer, when I visited myself, and saw the cosy cabin, and the damage and devastation done there, and I'd have to look forward to working with him. We will work with you, Minister. We know you're progressing. Thank Minister Canney, Deputy Canney, when he was Minister, he came to my own area, in Clonmel and other regions, and looked at issues there, and also to get, we need to get this moving. We're talking about this in reports, in CFRM reports, and consultants take up most of the money, a billion in the plan for, but consultants will take at least half of that. Consultants if you want to pick a bush, consultants if you want to clear an eye on a bridge, it's silly. And I have to take issue with Deputy Cairns from West Cork as well. When I saw this flooding in Bantry, when I saw the beautiful wheel, the old mill wheel at the river, and a child could see, or a blind person could see, that it's blocked. You've only that much, two foot of a space for water to go in. The culvers must be cleaned. The road inlets must be cleaned, and indeed the trees and bushes must be cut off the roads without obstructing the water to flow off the roads. I'm not a climate change denier, but I am for common sense, and not a bush is meeting under two roads. We have a river in Gordon, but we've knocked men down active to do great work there. We have people now into canoes and kayaking, sorry, and you can't go down the river. It's like a treasure hunt, get around the trees. The trees are blocked, it's silly. I want to salute the local county council worker under Walter Doherty and his team. Because when we had huge floods in Alfinnan, they were out and booked might and main with families to keep the water out of houses. So, our newlywanted Sergeant Nilo Halland, and all the community who work together so hard. And indeed this is overseeing Bellingham and Carabin County Waterford, Guy Rowe and his team, and Lanny Bolch, and John O'Mara and Cairn. And all the lads, they're frontline, but we have enough of them. And the real problem is, simplest straight minister, there's no maintenance of the roadways, of the inlets, of the watercourses. When I was young county councillor back in 1990, I put a motion forward to the Tipperary County Council, that we do an inventory of every water gully, culvert, invert, and indeed all those gullies and drains, and we'd have them forever, because they'd been lost. Some had been blocked by farmers and by construction and everything else, and they shouldn't have been. Whereas we had that map, we could argue that under the Roads Act 1996, we have powers to put water in off-road into lands. And we have to get Deputy Cairns water off the Roads, to keep the Roads, because you get water on the Roads, you get frost on the Roads, the Roads disintegrates, and you have huge damage to cars. And I'm surprised with that kind of talk, that you're against our palps in the motion for cutting the bushes and cutting the cutting. Is it okay to take the eyes out of people? Is it okay to block the Roads and the water flowing down the Roads instead of inside the ditch? It's nonsense talk. And get on the wellies and go out and understand what's going on in these situations. We have investments, and I want to thank the OPW, who did a great job in Clonmel. 96.7% successful, I'd say. But it's pure nonsense and folly if we're going to let the river build up every year. Every year, because every bit of dirt that comes off this building today, and any building, goes down into the gullies, washed into the river, whether it's off farms or anything else, or off the Roads. And that's keep rising. And who'd argue Deputy Cairns, I'm surprised at him, talking about getting a bucket, see if he wants or something, to put a bucket into the river and leave back the silt. The silt must be taken out, because otherwise they're choked, and all the schemes in the world won't keep the water out of Clonmel again, because the river will rise over. It's a simple thing, as you have a glass of water, this jug of water here, I've got a while ago, it's half empty. I filled that with stones, it overflows. Simple as, no engineers. I'm not an engineer, I'm not an expert, but I'm not an idiot either, and I've worked in this area. And the farmers, and the landowners, and the people know. And my God, there are the people in the houses, when there's water and sewage, up to their, you know, their elbows inside the houses. I've seen people on the highway, there's going over them in Adfin, and John Maha's house in Adfin, and other people there, Tommy Miles and many others. And that happens time after time. And even this time, even when the flood weather season comes, they don't sleep at night. And they did get the special doorways off the OPW into the scheme, they're a help. But they're no help when it comes up the sewage. And I saw in Banterbury, when I walked down the street as well, and saw the goodies busted up, and saw the whole tarmac lifted up. That tells you the water can't get away, it's just, and water will find its own level anywhere and everywhere. So we have to have common sense here. I have a family in Federt, Dimpton and John O'Donovan, who are living in a place where they get flooded, every flood. And I've been in the OPW for the last four years, begging for a scheme, relocation, or money to put their house up. I have a family in Calico, who is his own business, Tracy's, a fuel merchant, but built the house up in Stilts. Great job, like you see out in Denmark. But he didn't get a bob for them because he didn't wait for the scheme to do it. It's shameful. These people are showing leadership, and the OPW are too slow, and the schemes are too slow, and they're too bureaucratic. We don't get enough money. We ought to have a river at Kiladriff Bridge, in Kilmylar, where the river Aradair floods. We need money, and I'm asking the Minister to go down the road for your next county. I've asked you before to come down to Tipperary, and I'll show you two or three places where flood schemes have been done, and have a success, and I'll show you where somebody needed it. One of my own villages in Newcastle, and indeed in CAIR and the Adolans Super Values, and Scheme's Grace came. Deputy Canning came and saw those, and got them pushed along. But we should have more streamlined, and we should be able to do it differently. I also want to thank, as I said, our own local supervisor on CE scheme, Sean Byrne, and the men there, they do help with scent bags floating in the schools recently, and different areas. If you don't keep the drains cleaned, you're going to get flooding. That's as simple as. We know if we go into the sink in the bathroom, and let the stopper in and get blocked, it'll flow over. And it's not rocket science. We don't need consultants. We don't need people with engineering degrees out their ears. We need common sense. When we had the men on the ground, on the county councils, when we had the men in the OPW, these things were done. Well, sadly we have no men. We have all pin-pushers now, and the outdoor staff is reduced to a skeleton, and the areas are massive. If they're sitting to their truck and driving for the day, they wouldn't drive it, and the mines say, work on it. So that's the problem, and we need, we should have made that inventory of all those watercourses, and have them for, because the legal cases, we can prove the point, they were there on the map, but now they're sadly gone, and the damage is enormous. The damage, then, that's happening with clear-felling, with people, you know, not being taken away from timber, and leaving whole back areas, and the harvesting of the timber, coming down the hill with the machines, and all the water flows down afterwards, that's reckless. And we have, then, on the other hand, fellows that want to object to everything. We see them in Cork, and I have no experience, but I see the schemes going on, and the judicial review now, and I accept people who have rights there, but we must balance rights with common sense, too. And we must balance rights with the loss of property. Insurance, then, of course, they love it, because any smell of water, even a drop of water, or it could be, and I have heard of cases here today, where people on Highland, I have it too in Kilsheiland, they wouldn't be flooded if Noah's Ark sank, they wouldn't be flooded. They still maintain, we stay above it. And insurance companies line through it, because they're racketeers, they're gangsters, a lot of them, and they've never been touched by this government, the last government, or several governments, and they haven't been touched. We had the last minister talked about it, and review after review after review. We have it now with the pandemic. They want to insure a couple of people for this, that, or the other. Just take your money and get the small printer in to get out of every claim. It's no fun having a house or a business flooded. It's less fun when they flood annually and regularly. Deputy Connolly said it, and others said it. They're all over the country, those places. And I do agree, there's more rain. I'm not denying climate change. But we need to, first of all, maintain all the water courses we have. And then make new ones, and renew them. But we need the men on the ground with the shovel. There's no excuse for them. And I'm a machinery man myself, I say that. But you need the men with the shovel to do the small, tidy, neat work. And when the farmers had men working too, all the drains and the fields were cleaned every this time of year. October was the month for it. And the water then didn't come out of the roads. Because our roads are being abused. We have a finite amount of money to keep the roads. And the passage of the lorries now, a county engineer, the same county engineer told me that, that one passage of a fully laden truck is equivalent to 30,000 cars. Can you imagine? And the fully laden trucks now, they're bigger and bigger, with the big consomers and the milk tanks and everything else. They have to go. But we need to think wisely. We need to be strategic. And above all, we need to have human schemes. These schemes that you have, humanitarian schemes, are not working. That public eye business with Deputy Collins can't get the scheme, for technicalities and other reasons. But it's futile having schemes and having money invested, when we won't do the work that's needed. That is, the drainage work, and clear the inlets, and clear the rivers. They were clear to everyone, as Deputy Hilly Ray said, there was more fish in the bin. And I want to thank the fishery boats, Alan Culler and his brother, and others that work with me in Tipperary. And they are understanding, and they want to work with the farmers. So the farmers don't want to damage the ecology, or the environment. But they want to drain their land, and by doing so, get a fresh flowing river. The port and water, where the other shore goes into, was cleaned every 10 years. It wasn't cleared now with 30 or 40 years. So, silt is rising, and rising, and rising. So, common sense. Not very much in this place, up around here, unfortunately, Count Culler. It seems a scarce commodity, alright. But when the bureaucrats take over, and we have no man on the ground to do the work. Then we have no man on the ground to do the work. Then we have no man on the ground to do the work. So, look, it's time for common sense. Our motion is common sense. And I reject utterly your attempt, Minister, in the amendment, to delay this again. Far but kick you down the road for another can. That's not your kind to speak. That's not the way you operate. I've watched you since you've come in here, and I wish you well, as I said. But, we don't want this. We want action now. We want simple, plain action. Not big schemes, designs, the little things. Look after them. Albert said the little things trip you up. But the little things should be done, and they won't trip you up. And look after the little things, the late Albert Winners I'm referring to, former Taoiseach. And we should look after that. And let the people who want to clean rivers, and clean the streams, let them work. Let them work. Not have the ecology watchers. And Deputy County said, someone going around watching jobs with this beach data. Thank you very much, Deputy. Look after the people. Not watching them. Penalise them, because they're not good. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.