Poor Planning Has Caused A Lot Of Flooding Problems

The severe flooding in this area over the past few days have highlighted once again what I and others have been highlighting for many years even before I was in public life. The planning authorities in our local councils gave planning permission for houses and business premises to be built on known flood plains and the chickens are now coming home to roost in that regard. In terms of planning there was more heed paid to birds and snails to human beings and their needs. There are now members of the public and business people who cannot get insurance and they are faced with huge losses a couple of weeks before Christmas and my heart goes out to them. I am now calling on the Taoiseach to personally intervene in this serious situation and get the relevant Ministers like Minister Kelly and Minister Harris to come and visit counties Roscommon and Galway to see for themselves the devastation that this flooding has brought. We have to now seriously plan for flood relief.We got a warning in 2009 but we failed to heed that warning. We have to look at going back to proper dredging of local rivers like The Suck and The Shannon. With so much extra money coming in to the coffers in tax, instead of reducing the national debt, let’s put a couple of billion Euro aside for flood relief and proper planning procedures