Mr. Nicholas Tarrant:

I thank the Cathaoirligh and members of both committees for the invitation to today's meeting. I am the managing director of ESB Networks. I am joined by my colleagues, Brian Brady, who is head of network resilience and climate adaptation in ESB Networks, and Ms Karen McGeough, who is the senior manager responsible for storm resilience and readiness. We welcome the opportunity to discuss ESB Networks' review of Storm Éowyn and answer any questions the members may have on the work streams we are actively working on since the storm.

At the outset, I acknowledge the hardship experienced by families, farms, communities and businesses directly affected by Storm Éowyn and its impact on the electricity network. ESB Networks, together with our contract partners and other UK and European assistance, had to respond to the largest and most damaging storm event to impact on the electricity network in Ireland. Starting with approximately 768,000 of customers without electricity at the peak, in the immediate aftermath of Storm Éowyn, ESB Networks made every effort possible to restore electricity to customers as quickly as possible. Safety was our first concern during the restoration and repair work. Fallen or low-hanging electrical wires present a real danger to members of the public. The first phase of restoration work is to make the network safe, and a very important outcome is that there were no serious electrical safety incidents during the restoration efforts.

We have included some numbers in Appendix 1 of our submission to give a sense of the scale of Storm Éowyn. Ninety per cent of affected customers had their power restored within a week. However, due to the extent of the damage, the remaining 10% of customers - often in more isolated locations - had to endure a longer wait for restoration. During the storm restoration, we worked closely with many other agencies under the leadership of the National Emergency Coordination Group, NECG. The NECG played a vital role in co-ordinating a complex multi-agency response in areas such as supporting vulnerable customers, providing humanitarian hubs and supplying temporary generators to critical infrastructure sites. This allowed ESB Networks to focus on restoring electricity to customers as quickly as possible. We worked very closely with the local authorities, and I acknowledge the very important role they played in supporting the electricity restoration work on the ground.

ESB Networks has completed a comprehensive review of Storm Éowyn, which is published on our website. It covers areas such as storm preparedness, asset performance, resource mobilisation, customer communications and safety. There are findings and recommendations for each of the areas detailed in the report. From the data recorded, over 59% of faults involved trees from adjacent hedgerows and forestry. The rest of the faults arose as a result of damage to poles, overhead line conductors and associated equipment. During the restoration, approximately 4,500 poles were replaced, which is 0.2% of the total pole population across the network.

In March 2025, ESB Networks developed a Winter 2025 Grid Resilience Plan, which we published on our website, and we have since published an update on this plan which details the progress to date on the actions that are under way. This update is also included, as Appendix 3, in our submission. Progress is being made across all components of the plan including the post-storm inspection of the network, increasing storm materials stocks, mutual aid agreements with European utilities and additional emergency timber cutting.

To address the forestry issues, we have identified and prioritised corridors in the worst affected areas. We have commenced harvesting operations in targeted areas where we have the permission of the landowners. We are also working with the Department of Climate, Energy and Environment as draft new legislation to put forestry corridors on a statutory footing is developed.

In addition to the recently published storm review, we plan to publish two further reports. The first is a review of international utility practices following major storm events, focusing on measures to enhance network resilience, particularly against forest wind blow. The second is a review of our design standards for the distribution network, particularly in light of the higher wind speeds. We will publish both reports and associated recommendations in the new year.

Keeping customers informed during the storm restoration was a key priority for ESB Networks. In the worst affected areas, it was challenging to provide reasonable accuracy on estimated restoration times, ERTs, given the scale and widespread nature of the damage to the network. ESB Networks recognises this is a key area for further work and is taking steps, where possible, to enhance the accuracy and communication of ERTs to better support customers during future storm events. ESB Networks continues to seek every opportunity to further improve both storm resilience and restoration. That is the end of our introduction. I will now hand back to the Comhchathaoirleach. We are happy to take questions from the committee.