In the past few weeks we have witnessed the devastation caused by flooding in many areas throughout the country. In the past week I attended two meetings with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine on the drawing up of new maps, which process I have discovered to my horror is not being carried out in local offices, which is rather unusual.

I welcome the €5 million compensation fund for small businesses. The Taoiseach will probably have seen for himself the many family farms, slatted sheds and fodder damaged by flooding. Septic tanks, on which people had to pay a €5 levy following the introduction of legislation in January 2011, have also been damaged. I have learned in the past few days that the cost of repairs to damaged septic tanks which are registered but outside the 5% required to be inspected annually will not be met by the council or the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. The people concerned who abided by the law introduced by the Government in 2011 will have to meet the cost of repairs to their septic tanks, only because they are not included in the 5% of septic tanks required to be inspected annually under EU law.

Will the Taoiseach clarify if a family farm which is affected, whether it is its slatted shed or fodder, is considered a business? I class family farms across the country as businesses run by farmers.

Will the Taoiseach put one person or body in charge? There are currently 17 bodies looking after the Shannon. The Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht is sitting next to the Taoiseach. We have the National Parks and Wildlife Service and Inland Fisheries Ireland. Each organisation is blocking the other and the OPW, with the best will in the world, is going around in circles. It is trying to play happy families with everyone but it is being blocked. For once and for all, can we take the bull by the horns? Will one body with the authority to carry out relief works for flooding, dredging or whatever, without every obstacle possible being put in its way, be made responsible for the rivers? Will family farms receive payment under the SME scheme? Given the septic tank legislation, will a payment be made to those who are not in the 5% category? Currently they are being refused even though they complied with the law.

Answer the question about the National Parks and Wildlife Service first.

Under the Arterial Drainage Acts 1945 and 1995, streams are maintained to a standard by the Office of Public Works. This includes all 11,500 km of channel, 700 km of various embankments and associated scheme bridges, sluices, weirs, pumping stations and so on. Deputy Fitzmaurice is well aware that the suitably equipped hydraulic equipment does not gouge out new channels but removes, where maintenance is carried out, silted-up areas and sediment that becomes lodged due to currents in rivers.

It is obvious that farming is a business. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine and his Department recognise that fact, which is why particular flexibility has been shown in respect of the agrisector in this regard. Deputy Fitzmaurice knows that farmers are the first to come to each other's rescue. All over the country, where farmers get into trouble, their neighbours and community come to assist in terms of fodder, moving of animals and other issues such as flooded houses.

The Deputy knows from his previous existence the difficulties that can arise when one gets tangled with a Department or State authority. I am not saying that to the Deputy's detriment as he is entitled to his opinion. However, when one multiplies it by a plethora of statutory authorities, the important point is that the Office of Public Works, instead of glad-handling everyone, as described by Deputy Fitzmaurice, has identified 300 areas, 66 of which are on the Shannon. It will identify who is responsible and who should carry out the works required. This might be more effective than hoping to find a single entity, which would take years in court hearings and legal challenges from one statutory authority to another, some of which have been around since before the State was founded. The situation is not as simple as is suggested. The problem is that rivers rise when rainfall increases and the Shannon is a slow river-riser in that sense. People are now in dread of bad weather over the next week or so and I hope it does not happen, but there is a serious ongoing programme in place.

Deputy Fitzmaurice will also appreciate that when flood defences have to go into Athlone, Galway, Ennis, Fermoy or elsewhere, they have to be done right. There is no point in putting up something that is haphazard or ill-thought out. The hydrological surveys will also have to have been carried out.

I accept that many older people have great experience of drainage patterns and that experience should be called into account when the Office of Public Works or anyone else looks at land or tributaries that should be drained. Older people and farmers will say that for 50 years an area did or did not flood. In so many cases, commercial developers said they knew how to drain an area but that is not how it turned out. All that experience should, in our common interest, be used and applied.

We are coming to the season of goodwill so I ask the Taoiseach to clarify two simple issues for me. Will the Red Cross scheme cover farmers that have lost fodder or whose slatted sheds have been damaged given they are classed, in the Taoiseach's own words, as a business?

"Yes" or "No".

Are the people with septic tanks, affected by regulations introduced in 2011, covered? We are well aware of the protests at the time about registering septic tanks. The people who registered are now being refused payment by councils because the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government is saying they are not entitled to the money as they are not in the 5% category. Will the Taoiseach ensure those people are looked after? It is a straightforward question. Will farmers be brought in under the Red Cross scheme? Those are the two simple questions I would like answered.

The criteria for compensation for businesses under the Red Cross scheme are that the business in question would be located within the defined flood-risk area as set out by the Office of Public Works, that it would be flooded between the 4 December and 17 December, as authenticated by a local authority engineer, and that no insurance was available to the business. It is clear that many agricultural farms are located outside the areas defined by the Office of Public Works as being flood plains.

The requirement in respect of septic tanks was to register the tanks for €5. Registration under the scheme was costed by some on the opposite side of the House at €20,000, which was not the case. The intention was that, in respect of sediment and effluent coming from septic tanks that were not working properly, the tanks would be assessed on an interim basis-----

They are not. That's the problem.

-----and brought up to standard if they were not up to standard already.

They are only inspecting the good ones so they do not have to pay the grant. That is what is happening, Taoiseach.

The vast majority were in country areas outside areas designated flood-relief areas by the OPW and with exceptional rainfall they flood. It is not the first time this has happened. I cannot see that as being eligible under the Red Cross scheme but perhaps the local authorities and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government might be able to consider some element of it. On the criteria set out for the Red Cross scheme for businesses, many of them will not apply because they do not meet the conditions.

If the Red Cross will not cover it, will the Department?

Give a dispensation.