Electricity Grid
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-29
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Albert Dolan (FF), Galway East

At my meeting with ESB Networks today, it became very clear that the company has both immediate and medium-term plans. It is important to highlight that vegetation and trees are one of the biggest causes of recurring outages in north Galway, where is a significant amount of forestry. When people planted those trees 30 years ago, there was no legislation suggesting they had to be 30 m distant from either side of the wire. We have to be honest about that. One issue the ESB faces, which it raised with me and was quite surprised about, is that a lot of forestry is owned by pension funds and investments funds, which are, ultimately, faceless organisations. It can be difficult for the ESB to make contact with them to gain access to the lands to maintain the tree line. I know legislation is being worked on but the ESB needs to have the power to go in and maintain the lines. It is the State's infrastructure and the ESB's infrastructure. The ESB has to have the right go in and maintain it. That is vital.
In terms of immediate plans to protect areas like Dunmore, Glenamaddy and Mountbellew, I have heard stories of people who were two, three or four days without power. Every time that happens to a low-income family, they cannot afford to put food on the table because they are a few days without power. They have to go out for three of four meals a day and they have three kids. That is a really tough situation. When we get this right and when price review 6 investment comes through into areas like this, the people we will be helping are elderly people and people on lower incomes by giving them energy security.
I welcome the grant announcements earlier this week and the work the Minister is doing because it is important in terms of giving people control of their own energy in their homes.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:34+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-29