State must care for those who won’t be home for Christmas

Date Published: {J}

Two weeks from Christmas and there are hundreds of Galway families who will be forced to spend the festive season dependent on the charity of family or friends after their homes were destroyed by the recent floods. There are dozens of businesses too who are not alone desperately trying to get their premises back into working order, but they’re at the same time missing out on the most lucrative few weeks of the economic year.

And still the Government pays lip service to their suffering, announcing a paltry aid package which is rigidly means tested and forcing them to depend on charity to get them through this nightmare. Yesterday’s Budget was always going to be the main focus for Government over the past month, but its mealy-mouthed response to the flooding crisis across the South and West showed how out of touch this Cabinet has become from the people.

There was no real cognisance of the human suffering of so many; no acceptance of the nightmare they were dealing with in towns, villages and on underwater farms up and down the county.

Even now, there is a lack of real commitment to, firstly, getting people back into their homes and, secondly, to addressing how it will work to prevent a re-occurrence of this scale of disaster again.

There have been many suggestions, ranging from dredging the main rivers – the Shannon in particular – to remove the build-up of silt over the years to coming up with a comprehensive flood prevention programme. Most of the focus must be on preventing this happening in the future, but attention also needs to be given as to how and why it happened in the first place.

Why was planning permission given to build so many housing estates on traditional flood plains? Did the construction of the new M6 play any part in forcing displaced water to higher levels? Was the response all that it should have been?

The emergency services are certainly not to blame because they – and local authority workers – pulled out all the stops. So too did communities who proved that the fastest way to resolving a crisis is to bypass bureaucracy altogether.

But why wasn’t the fire service officially deployed in relief work from the start? Why wasn’t the army called out to help with flood relief or at the very least to fill and place sandbags as a barrier in vulnerable areas? Why was so much left to the heroism of ordinary people who risked life and limb through the night to ease the flow of water through their neighbours’ homes?

Why did it take the Taoiseach so long to even visit the flooded areas – and even then he seemed to be travelling with one hand as long as the other; offering a mere €10 million or €12 million as though this was the cure-all compensation package when it reality it wouldn’t suffice to repair one village?

Yes, this was an unprecedented event and it would have been impossible for any Government anywhere to have a plan of action that would have ensured no damage at all.

But unfortunately it probably won’t be too long before we see a nightmare like this unfurling again – and what initiatives will the Government have announced by then to make sure we minimise the impact of the floods next time?

Average compensation pay-outs of €300 are just adding insult to injury and, while no one wants to substitute State pay-outs for domestic insurance, there is a critical need to acknowledge the scale if the crisis as well.

This is a nightmare for families whose homes have been destroyed; even if they get them habitable for Christmas, so much has been lost. Many won’t even manage that and for them the nightmare goes on.

Every taxpayer in the land is worse off after yesterday’s Budget, but those of us still in our homes and looking forward to Christmas it two weeks time can take relative comfort from that.

For the rest, the State has a duty to alleviate the suffering of those who won’t be home for Christmas, who won’t be able to farm their land for a few months yet, who won’t be back in business before the end of 2009. We may be broke but we’re not so broke that we can turn our backs on our neighbours in their time of greatest need.