I wish the Taoiseach a happy new year. On the 24th of this month we mark the one-year anniversary since Storm Éowyn, the strongest storm ever experienced here, hit Ireland. Over 800,000 homes were left without power and over 100,000 without water. This had an enormous impact on families, farms and businesses. Tens of thousands of homes waited over a week before basic services were restored to them. In the wake of the storm the Department of housing and ESB Networks set out separate assessments of the State’s preparation, its response and what lessons can be learned for the next storm of this size and there will be more storms like this. As extreme weather events become more frequent and more destructive due to climate change, we need to strengthen our emergency services and resource those who repair critical infrastructure to respond rapidly and effectively. One of the key elements of responding to a major storm is the ability to get engineers from other countries on the ground quickly to help restore power. While we have a mutual aid agreement with the UK, we do not have them with European providers. I raised this lack of mutual aid agreements with European networks with the Taoiseach last October. I met ESB Networks last month. While it is actively negotiating mutual aid agreements with the European networks, they are still not in place. This is one year after Storm Éowyn. The Government's review of Storm Éowyn identified trees in private forestry plantations falling on power lines as a significant cause of outages. It set out that the laws governing the obligation to maintain corridors around power lines are inadequate and in July the Cabinet gave approval for the drafting of the electricity supply (amendment) Bill to put electricity corridors on a statutory footing but in December when I asked the Minister for climate when the Bill will be before the Dáil, he was not able to give me a date. It is not just me raising concerns about how prepared we are for the next major storm. Over Christmas RTÉ reported that the Climate Change Advisory Council was extremely disappointed by the sectoral adaptation plans to deal with extreme weather events approved by the Taoiseach's Government in November. The advisory council stated that there is no clear costings for activities within the plans, no indication of investment needs and no clear commitment of available funding to support implement. It has even asked that the Minister for climate attend one of its meetings to engage with it on this matter. As we approach the one year anniversary of Storm Éowyn, can the Taoiseach tell me when the electricity supply (amendment) Bill will come before this House for debate? Will he ensure that mutual aid agreements with EU electricity networks are rapidly put in place? Will he commit that the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, will meet with the Climate Change Advisory Council to hear why it feels the Government's plans to deal with severe weather events are not good enough?
Sentiment score: 0.20
Absolutely, community supports are important and need to be improved but the Taoiseach has not addressed the issue of getting power back to people as quickly as possible and making sure we are resourced to do that. Last January, the strongest critique of Government's failure after Storm Éowyn was not getting power back to people quickly enough. In Mayo, 43,000 people lost power at the height of the storm; seven days later, 17,500 were still without power. In Galway, it was even worse: 59,000 people lost power on the day and seven days later 31,000 were still without power. That is why it is so important we have mutual aid agreements so we can get more engineers on the ground more quickly to help the ESB address those power outages. I ask the Taoiseach to address the point as to whether the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, will meet with the Climate Change Advisory Council to understand why it thinks the Government's storm preparedness plans are not good enough.
Sentiment score: 0.01
Not quickly enough.
Sentiment score: 0.00
Thirty-one thousand.
Sentiment score: 0.00