Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)

I thank all the witnesses for being here and for their opening statements. I have a couple of points. It is important to put on the record the work done over that period, especially by the staff in the local authorities and ESB Networks. I know ESB Networks crews came up from County Kerry and other parts of the country to where I come from in County Longford. They were there all through the weekend, away from home and working through the night. I saw that hundreds of metres away from where I live. In tough conditions, they were cutting down forestry and fixing power lines. It is important that we put that on the record and thank all the staff for the huge amount of effort and work they put in during that time. It includes the staff of the local authority in my county. They also pulled out all the stops. It is important to recognise it.

From the local authority perspective, it was stated that resources were used. From a funding perspective, have they been adequately compensated? Has the shortfall in funding, because it had to be used earlier in the year, impacted other services?

Turning to the witnesses from the Department, regarding Irish Water plants, we had the issue that no generators were in place. We had water not being produced. Has this issue been addressed at all water treatment plants or production points? A comment was made in the context of the CCMA and Monaghan County Council. That should be done by every local authority. I know they are working on it, but it should be done and delivered to every household. It is not going to be delivered now until the new year because of the pre-Christmas booking system with An Post. That should have been done last week, but it has not been done.

With regard to forestry and the cutouts, we have had issues where forestry was planted too close to power lines. Where are we now with regard to the lines being cleared throughout the whole network? I know surveys were done with helicopters going around the whole country. My home county was the second highest area affected. Over 90% of connections were out. In some cases, this lasted for up to three weeks and 90% of the problems were caused where forestry had come down and taken out lines. It was extremely difficult to get into them. I would like the witnesses to address those comments and answer the questions if they could. I will start with the witnesses from the local authorities.