I too would like to be associated with the expressions of sympathy to former Senator Gerard Lynch from Listowel, County Kerry. I did not know him but his reputation certainly preceded him as a councillor, Deputy and Senator. May he rest in peace, and sympathies to his family.

We have had inclement weather in the last couple of days with a lot of rain, which reminds me of something that I raised in the Seanad before Christmas, that is, the need for a debate on weather preparation. We have seen in recent years that we have had extreme weather events and more so than we would have had in the past. While our emergency services are certainly well equipped and capable of dealing with many situations, they need more funding and we need to see greater investment in equipment to support our emergency services. We also need to see greater investment in flood relief and flood protection measures. Going forward, we will see much more of this type of event. I would like to have a debate here to discuss our winter readiness and our readiness for extreme weather events. The more knowledge we have and the more we can input into it from our own experiences in our communities, the better informed we can be, and the better our readiness can be.

I remember 2009 and 2010, when I was a member of Clare County Council. In one year, we were flooded and the following year, we were frozen. On Christmas Day that year, most of County Clare and many parts of the country did not have water because the taps were frozen. On 6 January 2014, our shoreline right across the country was impacted with an extreme ocean event. I would like to see that debate scheduled at some stage in the near future.