I thank the Minister for meeting with the Tipperary groups last Friday night. It was a meaningful meeting with Jobs4Tipp, March4Tipp, Councillor Anne Marie Ryan and indeed the Tipperary Town Chamber of Commerce. They really appreciated it. I hope the Minister continues the collaboration in an effort to get the trucks out of the town with a ring road.

We have had bad weather in the last ten days in Tipperary. Areas of Tipperary, Cahir, Cashel, the Knockmealdowns and the Galtees were badly hit. I salute the outdoor staff and engineering staff but we need extra funding to deal with this outburst of water and flooding. It caused substantial damage and we need money for drainage. We acknowledge the annual funding we got but we need a top-up. I ask the Minister to look at it. He might meet Tipperary County Council following its request for a meeting. I thank the Minister for his meaningful involvement and look forward to the future.

I thank the Deputy. I hope that I did not get myself or anyone else into trouble. I found the meeting useful and I commit to meeting Tipperary County Council about the issue. The meeting was about the issue of roads and I was particularly interested with my own roots being in that neck of the woods. Clear problems exist in Tipperary town because of the volume of freight traffic passing through. The roads programme that we signed off on two or three weeks ago contains more than €600 million in spending. I will look at any instance where weather conditions have caused a particular local problem but in my mind, it is well-provisioned. We have increased spending for repairs and maintenance to keep a steady state condition of our roads. I look forward to meeting Tipperary County Council about similar local issues.