Electricity Supply: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-30 ============================================================ Fiona O'Loughlin (FF), Administrative Panel I commend my colleagues on bringing this motion forward. It is important we debate it. It is clear the proposer, Senator Scahill, has put a lot of thought into it. I commend him on that. I come from a place in north-west Kildare that has suffered seriously on many occasions from a lack of electricity. I would say, on average, it has been nearly two or three times per week in the past year. I know the impact that has on families, farmers, those who are working, those with young families and older people. It has to be acknowledged and there has to be some way that can be managed through the existing system. It is a rural but quite large area outside Rathangan and into Lullymore, Allenwood, Kilmeage, Robertstown, Carbury, Derrinturn and all of that area. I have had a number of Commencement matters on it. The motion is broadly in line with Government policy and Fianna Fáil policy, especially in seeking to increase the affordability of electricity for customers and to take into account the effect on customers of electricity supply disruption due to adverse weather conditions. Sometimes it happens without adverse weather conditions, particularly where there are many trees and there is ash dieback. It is becoming a huge problem. There is widespread public concern around the country about the affordability of energy and electricity. The motion acknowledges Government action to address energy affordability but, crucially, calls for a system to be put in place whereby electricity consumers do not have to pay the standing charge element of their bill while their supply is interrupted due to adverse weather conditions. The Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment, Deputy O'Brien, is of the opinion it is more important to minimise the extent to which customer supply is interrupted by adverse weather conditions, and he is absolutely right. We have to minimise that. At the same time, I think it is important that there would be some acknowledgment, absolutely, that this is happening and that people feel compensated in principle, as well as just the financial element of it. I commend the Minister on advancing the forestry corridors Bill to give the companies enhanced powers to clear trees around key electricity lines to reduce their vulnerability in storms. That is hugely important and we hope that this Bill will certainly will go through both Houses in an efficient manner. I also want to mention the price review 6, PR6, investment programme in grid infrastructure. That will lead to an unprecedented investment of €18.9 billion in the electricity grid. That is really important. To make this investment at the least cost to consumers the Government decided on an investment of €3.5 billion in their equity at the last budget. These actions certainly will minimise the extent of supply interruptions, which is more important for households and businesses than a relatively trivial reduction in one element of their electricity bill. The electrification of the country was certainly one of the great enablers of this State and not just in terms of standards of living. Obviously, when people had the opportunity to get electricity into their homes, their standard of living improved at an incredible level, along with standards of education with the electrification of our schools. For ensuring job opportunities and industrialisation, this was absolutely the greatest thing that ever happened to this country. It is concerning that time after time we are now seeing interruptions in the system. It is important that this is acknowledged. Public confidence in our energy supply is important and building that trust between the supplier and the consumer is important. When that trust starts to go - and I have seen that around north-west Kildare - it is a problem that we have to address. Supporting this Bill is one way we can say "Look, hands up we are absolutely acknowledging that this is an issue". This is a principled response to helping to address that. Obviously, we want to get to a stage where we do not have any situation where we are going to have interruptions in energy. I support this motion on behalf of the Fianna Fáil party. --- 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/2026-06-30/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:07+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-06-30