First, I wish the Tánaiste well in his new position. Two weeks ago tonight, the people of the west, the north west and the midlands faced one of the toughest nights of their lives with the after-effects of this storm. They are still being felt and will be felt into the future. On Saturday morning, the clean-up operation began, where local communities and contractors got together to clear roads. I compliment them and the farming community. I also compliment the ESB crews who are out day and night. The guys on the ground in the ESB are doing tremendous work. There are some things higher up the ESB might learn. I hope today, in Cloonalough in Ballinlough, a form that is to be signed to get a contractor working to cut trees will be done fairly rapidly.

We need to learn lessons from this about where things went wrong. Nobody can prevent a storm but what we need to do is put appropriate measures of mitigation in place to make people's lives a bit easier in a time like this. Unfortunately, for people with underlying health conditions, those needing hoists, people with disabilities, newborn babies, young children or people needing PEG-feeding machines, sleep apnoea machine and all the different types of things people need would not work. There was absolutely no communication whatsoever because phone lines were down and it was as if we did not exist for those few days. I welcome Deputy Calleary's humanitarian fund but I ask him to look at one thing. He was always at the end of a phone when we wanted it, but what needs to be done is to find out what is going on. The €50 or €100 will be paid but the rest is not being done. People could not cook all week, and the cost of generators and all of that has been huge.

The Tánaiste knows I spoke within the Government talks about trees. I am a contractor myself and 95% of everything I have seen has been a problem with trees. Will the Government bring in a regulation and fund it to look after situations where trees in forestry are within 30 m or 35 m of roads or a power or communications line? Second, regarding the farming community, farmers tonight or in the past two weeks have sheds with no roofs and the cows are calving. Will a fund be brought out for that? It is ferociously important that is done. Windblown timber is also a huge problem. I do not want task forces or talking shops. The Government is talking about a task force at the moment. It is pounds, shillings and pence that people need at the moment. Will the Government enforce the issue with Irish Water? We are a local group water scheme. We had enough cop on to get generators. Irish Water is a big operation. There is no reason people should not have water in a time like this. We should have been ready for it.

I thank the Deputy. The Tánaiste to respond.

Will the Government give councils and local communities funding to make sure they can do a huge clean-up after this? There is a lot of debris.

I thank Deputy Fitzmaurice for the constructive way he is engaging on this issue. I am very conscious that this is still a very real issue in his own constituency. While we talk about the next steps, and he rightly talks about the lessons learned, I am conscious we are still seeing in many parts of the west and north west a significant number of people - around 12,000 premises - without electricity. It is down from 13,000 this morning and 22,000 yesterday. This is going on a very long time for people and I genuinely appreciate that. I thank the Deputy for his comments about the work of the Minister, Deputy Calleary. We are grateful to him for the work he has been doing and being out on the ground engaging with communities. So far in that humanitarian assistance scheme more than 4,000 claims and, I think, in excess of €800,000 have been paid out to date. We have been prioritising and putting a particular focus on those who have been without power or indeed those who are most vulnerable. Households who lost power and submitted claims for costs will have those claims dealt with as soon as possible. I provide the Deputy's constituents with that assurance.

I take the point the Deputy makes in the way he subtly but rightly differentiated between the ESB and the ESB crews. I thank the ESB crews, the more than 3,000 men and women out doing incredible work. There are absolutely lessons to be learnt for the ESB and for Uisce Éireann, Departments, agencies and local authorities. There is just no doubt about that. Even in a country as small geographically as Ireland, the response varied very significantly depending on which county people happened to live in. We need to look at that and look at how there can be a much more standard and consistent approach. We need to look at how we can support the communities to be more resilient. I take the Deputy's point. I was in Monaghan recently engaging with the Civil Defence and others. The phone network had gone down there as well. They were dusting off old phones in the Civil Defence. Old technology, if you like, was the only technology left working. What do you do when the technology goes down? If we can manage to do this in many parts of the world, surely we can manage to do it in this country as well.

I think the Deputy is right on trees. We are going to have to make big calls in this situation. He has spoken to me about this before. The idea that we are spending millions, and in this storm a hell of a lot more than that, restoring power lines that have been knocked down by trees and then putting the lines back up among the trees again does not make any sense. It is a danger and Government is considering all options in this regard. The ESB already has significant powers and we need to consider if there is a need for any further clarity on this. My colleague, the Minister for agriculture, and the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, had a specific meeting yesterday on that issue of windblown wood. I am conscious the TAMS scheme is available for farmers too but we need to see if there are gaps there that need to be plugged. We remain engaged. I am ruling nothing out, nor is the Government. We are keeping an open mind and engaging constructively. There will be task forces and reports to review, but that is separate to and distinct from helping people in the here and now with the emergency they are feeling in their homes, their businesses and on their farms.

I welcome the Tánaiste's comments on trees but this needs to put into a regulation and funded. No more of this talk can go on. We can never endure again what we are after enduring. Will the Minister for trade and enterprise look at small businesses that have been closed over the past week? Some of them are going into two weeks now. A lot of places do not have power yet. Will the Minister for rural affairs to look at community hubs and a generator that a doctor can set up? We need to look at that. We need to learn. On the farmers, I appreciate there is a generator grant under TAMS, but there is not for old sheds the roof has gone off and no insurance. We need movement on that rapidly. Generators are a thing in rural areas that we need to look at, encourage and try to bring some in. A lot of money has been spent on NBI by the taxpayers of this country. Broadband is a fabulous thing but the problem is it is decimated at the moment. I have no great faith in Eir, because it will hardly fix a phone for you not to mind putting up the poles we need to put up, but it will need to be brought to task to make sure it replaces the infrastructure because-----

I thank the Deputy. The Tánaiste to respond.

-----the NBI broadband is running out.

The Deputy is speaking a lot of common sense on this. The Government is going to engage with the local authorities regarding generators for communities. One of the most obvious things we should be doing is making sure there are more generators available in communities for when things like this happen. The Deputy is right that nobody can storm but we have to be better prepared in terms of resilience and infrastructure at that local level. Of course we look at national response, but it is important in any review that we look at the on-the-ground response. The Deputy mentioned the word "community". One of the good things we have seen from this very difficult time is community coming together. I am delighted we have been investing in things like sports capital grants because thank God we now have more GAA clubs and football clubs with showers and changing room facilities that they have put to use for communities at this very difficult time. The Minister for communications, Deputy O'Donovan, who is here beside me, is bringing in all the telecommunication companies next week to specifically engage on a number of those issues. My understanding is the vast majority of NBI customers now have their connection back but we will engage with those companies.

I thank the Tánaiste.

I will come back to the Deputy on each of the specific matters, including on the agriculture point he made.