I raise the issue of Lough Funshinagh. Deputy O'Donnell, in his new role as Minister of State with responsibility for the Office of Public Works, visited County Roscommon and the communities that are heavily impacted. There is utter devastation for the families who have been impacted by the flooding. They are losing homes, land, farms and roads. Around Curraghboy, for example, a road is flooded and there is no access for local people. This is the result of climate change in County Roscommon and it is having a massive impact on the people there. It has been crucial that An Taoiseach, Simon Harris, has taken this as a priority and ensured attention has been paid, but if there is to be any solution, it has to happen in the coming months. The challenge is that this is a turlough and a special area of conservation, but there has been such a high level of rainfall this year. We know that from the farming crisis and the fodder issues we are facing. It is a level of rainfall that is making it impossible to protect any of these places. We need some action to be done here in order that we can protect the conservation objectives of an SAC as well as families and livestock, because nothing is being protected at the moment. It is crucial that we see some possibility and hope for communities in this area.

I want to give a cautious welcome to the news overnight that Tara Mines in Navan is to reopen on a gradual basis. This mine, the largest sink mine in Europe, has been closed for nine long months, with more than 600 employees left on minimal support. It has been nine long months when there has been very little goodwill from the company towards this workforce in Navan. It is my sense there has been a strategy to starve these workers into submission and get to this point.

I thank the unions for the work they have conducted in bringing about these negotiations with the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC. I hope the detail, which has yet to be published in the public domain, will not see a significant diminution of the workers' terms and conditions, which they have secured over many years in working in extremely perilous circumstances deep underground.

My thoughts are with the nearly 200 people who, through a voluntary redundancy package, will reduce the workforce to a little over 400. While I welcome the fact we have a draft agreement, it is wrong in the extreme that more than 600 people in Navan and the wider area have been left in this position for over nine months. I hope the detail, when published, will be discussed in depth by the workforce and that we will see a reopening of Tara Mines.