Paul Murphy: State 'desperately unprepared' for extreme weather
Paul Murphy said the state was desperately unprepared for recent extreme weather, warning that the events were predictable and reflect climate change driving much wetter, more extreme conditions. He reported widespread damage in his constituency, failures by emergency services and local authorities, and accused politicians of scapegoating agencies and environmental protections rather than addressing rezoning, housing near riverbanks and two decades of underfunding for climate adaptation.
State unpreparedness and climate prediction
Paul Murphy said the extreme weather was not unpredicted, noting it was predicted 20 years ago that climate change would bring much wetter conditions and extreme events. He warned this is "the music of the coming future" and that such flooding is going to get worse.
Constituent experiences and emergency response
He recounted reports from his constituency of damage to homes and recurring incidents where residents felt unassisted. He quoted a Rathfarnham constituent saying there were 10 children across six houses blocked in by water for several hours; residents contacted emergency services but none attended, and South Dublin County Council said it had no resources and advised residents to contact emergency services.
Scapegoating of agencies and environmental protections
Murphy criticised politicians for seeking targets for blame, saying Met Aaron, the habitats directive, civil society groups and even the freshwater pearl mussel were blamed rather than examining planning decisions. He argued these distractions avoid the core questions about who rezoned floodplains and permitted housing closer to riverbanks.
Calls for climate action and flood adaptation
He called for real climate action and genuine flood adaptation measures, stressing the need to confront the long-term underfunding of adaptation over the past 20 years and to change planning decisions that put housing at risk.
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Thanks a lot. What we've seen over the past few weeks shows how desperately unprepared the state was for the extreme weather that we've experienced. This was not unpredicted, it's predicted 20 years ago that the impact of climate change is precisely going to be much much wetter weather which expresses itself then in extreme events. This unfortunately is the music of the coming future. This is what climate change looks like in Ireland and it's going to get worse and worse and worse. All over my constituency people told me about the damage done to their homes, people telling me how this isn't the first time it's happened and overwhelmingly a sense of we were not prepared, we were not assisted properly. I want to quote a constituent from Rathfarnham, there were 10 children across six houses blocked in by the water for several hours on our cul-de-sac. Residents contacted emergency services, however no emergency services attended the estate. We contacted South Dublin County Council who stated they had no resources available and advised us to contact emergency services instead. This was predictable but the state wasn't prepared and then what we've seen really is an attempt by politicians to scapegoat anybody that or anything that could be found that could possibly be scapegoated. Met Aaron got blamed. The same people who gave out about too many yellow and orange and red warnings then all of a sudden decided that Met Aaron were to blame and they should have had more serious warnings. The habitats directive got the blame. Civil society groups who try and defend our biodiversity and nature and the kind of measures that would cut across this flooding, they get the blame. The freshwater pearl mussel gets the blame. All of it to avoid the question of who rezoned the floodplains, as John Sweeney said, who allowed housing closer to riverbanks than was wise and who has drastically underfunded climate adaptation measures for the past 20 years. We need real climate action and we need real flood adaptation measures.
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