Telecommunications Infrastructure Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-24 ============================================================ Charlie McConalogue (FF), Donegal I thank Senator Scahill for raising this matter today. Communications infrastructure across the country has seen significant investment of over €5 billion over the last eight years. These investments over that time by both the State and commercial operators ensure that Ireland has access to the latest digital infrastructure, whether that is 5G mobile connectivity or gigabit fibre networks. These investments also ensure that our networks are more resilient than ever before. Notwithstanding that, Storm Éowyn had an unprecedented impact on telecommunications networks last winter, as the Senator has very clearly outlined in his contribution here. The impact of the sustained power loss during the storm and the delays to repair of overhead lines in some areas afterwards had significant effects on citizens and particularly in rural areas of the north and west. The extensive damage to the electricity network and the consequent loss of mains power had the most significant impact on the telecommunications networks during that storm. Our modern telecoms networks are heavily reliant on electricity for their operation and while services can be maintained for several hours on battery power, the batteries are not designed to cater for power outages of many days. I understand that ESB Networks is undertaking its own resilience programme to mitigate the risk of power outages, which should see significant benefits for the telecoms services. Nonetheless, the extent of service outages experienced in the aftermath of Storm Éowyn last January has placed renewed focus on how resilient our sector is. The programme for Government reaffirmed our commitment to investing in the State's telecommunications networks. The programme sets a target for the completion of the high-speed fibre network to provide broadband access to 1.1 million people, including homes, farms and businesses nationwide by the end of this year. To date, the total amount invested by the State in the national broadband programme since 2020, when the national broadband plan network roll-out commenced, is €1.152 billion. As part of the network roll-out, a comprehensive programme has been undertaken to assess and, where necessary, replace poles used to carry the overhead fibre network. This programme has seen over 1.1 million poles stress tested to date and replaced where necessary. In addition to the State's significant investment in gigabit fibre networks, the commercial operators have also been investing heavily in their networks over the last number of years. Mobile and fixed-network operators have invested in improving their networks and targeting resilience measures such as increased use of underground ducting, installing additional on-site backup batteries, and making 1,700 power generators available. Since January 2025, when Storm Éowyn exposed the inability of the networks to withstand sustained power outages, operators have focused new additional investments on improving power resilience at key sites. This has involved putting in larger batteries and making more sites ready for mobile power generators in the event of longer power outages. Beyond investments, my Department continues to engage with industry through the telecommunications response and resilience group, which was established last September to improve the physical and power resilience of networks, co-ordinate and communicate more effectively during emergencies and prioritise key infrastructure to provide minimum levels of connectivity during emergencies. One of the first key outputs form this group has been the identification of a list of key mobile sites that are being prioritised for resilience and restoration measures. In the event of a future storm, once these sites are restored or kept on air, a basic level of connectivity is maintained across the country. This idea was first suggested in a meeting that was convened by the Minister with industry in the aftermath of Storm Éowyn last year and I am glad that it is progressing. The group met again just last week to discuss progress and to set out its plans for this year. I understand it will focus on matters related to mitigating the risk of trees or branches falling and damaging the infrastructure and other fixed network priorities. Our recent work to improve resilience is set against a wider effort to improve resilience and preparedness more generally across many aspects of society. The legislative framework for the resilience of critical infrastructure across all sectors is undergoing significant change this year. This will have a positive impact on telecommunication networks. The second EU networks and information systems directive and the EU critical entities resilience directive are two directives that are in the process of being transposed and implemented by the Departments of justice and Defence, respectively. Together, they will regulate minimum standards for the resilience, risk and incident management of entities in the cyber and physical space under the supervision of national competent authorities. Taken together, these measures will set out a process for operators to systematically identify other potential vulnerabilities to severe weather events in their critical infrastructures that will allow for the targeting of their future investments in resilience. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-24/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:41+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-24