Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:

In response to Storm Éowyn, we have been dealing with the aftermath of the storm in terms of residual faults on the network. We have done extensive surveys of the network. Our network right across Ireland has about 160,000 km of overhead lines. The west and the north west got the biggest brunt of the storm in January and February. We have done those surveys and we are now doing follow-up work. The Government has requested that we put a plan in place, called the winter resilience plan, for this upcoming winter. Based on those surveys, we are doing targeted work on the network, including the progressing of some targeted forestry corridors. We are doing emergency timber cutting, and bringing in additional resources to do that. We are also doing work on the maintenance of our overhead line network. That work will progress right through the winter.

A number of other things are important to mention as well. We are doing a review of the storm including how the response went and what lessons we can learn for the future, which is important. We will also do an international review, as we are calling it, to look at international practice in other countries that experience severe weather, with a view to learning what they did with regard to the design and layout of the network in the aftermath. We plan to publish that probably early in the new year. There will then be discussions about how our investment plans should change in light of those recommendations. It is important to note that if we are hit with 185 km/h winds again – nobody can rule it out, albeit Storm Éowyn was the worst storm the ESB network faced since the 1940s – there would still be severe damage. That is a risk. We will take as many measures as we can to address the network in advance of this winter, but it is an overhead line network and it has exposure to that kind of extreme winds.