Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)

I acknowledge the work that was done during Storm Éowyn by front-line staff. A lot of the work overseen in Laois by the director of services and many structures that were put in stood up quite well to the test. However, there are some problems. First, Uisce Éireann will not do anything about the generators for rural group water schemes.

Uisce Éireann has no role with rural group water schemes and it is an issue that local authorities need to deal with. The local authorities need to, particularly big schemes, and Mr. Kehoe will be familiar with The Heath, Ballyroan and Ballypickas schemes. They are all big schemes that supply thousands of households and it is the same in every other county. I want it noted that this is an issue that needs to be dealt with separately because that is the division and the way it works.

To move on, the number of local authority staff has ballooned. My next comment is for Mr. Leonard in the Department. This is an issue that the Department needs to take on board. It grants staff for arts, community and for this, that and the other. There is some fault with what is provided for the local authorities because the requests submitted for resources have ballooned but omit general operatives, GOs, which is a real problem. There were fewer than 50 GOs in Laois during Storm Éowyn and this is a problem because there are not any people to do the preventative maintenance in the first instance. For example, a pallet stuck in a culvert and blocking it is not caught in time, that is, before a storm happens. I am not taking away from the good work being done by the skeleton staff that is there. It is not good having huge municipal areas that just have an overseer who has a handful of workers. Local authorities must get back to what they should be doing.

I say to the county managers' association and to Mr. Leonard, I will say it locally as well, that the Department needs to stop this and get local authorities back to what they should be doing. Requests for staff are being approved and local authorities have armies of staff but they are not deployed where they need to be.

I want to make two further points. First, the housing section of Laois County Council has started using more of its own staff, that is, direct labour. Guess what? They are doing re-lets of houses a lot quicker and a lot cheaper. That is what local authorities need to get back to doing.

Second, the ESB is in the same situation because it no longer has linesmen. I welcome that legislation is coming through and that the ESB is trying to progress it. The response by ESB staff was phenomenal. ESB staff had to work in very difficult terrain. It took them days to cut their way into wooded areas and I give the staff full credit for their work. However, some of the outages were caused by overhanging branches and a couple of decades ago linesmen crews would be deployed to resolve such issues. I do not think the ESB still has linesmen and now they are called technicians. Every linesman crew was comprised of a general operative, a ganger and two linesmen. They had a crew cab which carried chainsaws and all the equipment they could possibly need in the back. Those crews took care of all the small outages that were caused by, say, a bough of a tree coming down. Recently the ESB has started increasing its number of staff which I welcome. I also welcome the expansion of the training centre. I was not able to attend the launch but the best of luck with the training centre in Portlaoise. It is fantastic. Does the ESB intend expanding its number of outdoor staff to perform preventative maintenance works?