Communities across the south and east coasts have been left devastated with the fallout from Storm Chandra. Tá an talamh sáite tar éis seachtainí de bháisteach. We are most grateful to emergency services, local authorities and communities who have rallied to help the vulnerable. For the first time I can recall, I heard a non-Green Party Cabinet Minister use the words "climate crisis" in relation to a weather event. It was welcome, because we all know the first part of addressing a problem is admitting there is one. He also bizarrely pointed the finger of blame at Met Éireann. The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, yesterday on national radio spoke about another M50 and putting in extra culverts. He spoke about the ring road in Galway but did not once mention the causation of these weather events and how facilitating more growth in car travel is contributing to the problem and the congestion. The Minister blaming environmental law, EU regulation and Met Éireann smacks of a Government in a tailspin. He talks of adaptation and mitigation. He does that a lot now since he has abandoned Ireland's commitment towards meeting our climate targets, but we cannot do that.

What can we do right now? These weather events are now part of our everyday lives and we will have to adapt. I have heard the frustration of the people of Enniscorthy regarding the delays in the flood relief scheme. These hard-engineering solutions are complex, take a lot of time and have a lot of environmental regulation attached. There is, however, much we could be doing that could at least help and certainly would do no harm. Nature-based solutions are nothing new. Many cities globally have been implementing them for decades. The basic concept of working with nature to slow down water, attenuate it and allow it out to sea in a controlled way is something we should be moving from small pilot schemes through the local authority water programme, LAWPRO, towards scalable solutions in catchments and in our urban areas. In Dublin, communities like Stoneybatter are piloting schemes. Dublin City Council is retrofitting streets with landscaping and plants to help to slow down and filter water run-off. I visited an amazing project in Cobh where something similar is being done. We have seen the beginnings of a riparian planting scheme in the upper reaches of the Dodder. River trusts are looking at how best to use natural flood plains. There are a lot of great small schemes out there, often led by local communities. What we need from the Government is a nature-based solutions plan. We need a fully funded nature restoration plan that recognises the co-benefits of restoring peatlands, uplands and nature in cities. We need county development plans to be changed. We need a well-resourced NPWS, nature-based solution teams in local authorities, and more funding for LAWPRO. We need to put permeable paving in all new projects and include nature-based solutions in all new developments. Most of all, we need a land-use plan. Where is it? Come to think of it, where is the urgency on any of this? While many of the communities have been waiting on OPW hard-engineering schemes, we could have been working with landowners, local authorities and communities to work with nature to help. Rather than blaming others, Government should be leading.