Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-13
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Roderic O'Gorman (GP), Dublin West

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?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:30+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-13