Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

What happened last Saturday is rare. Many houses are connected to the network. I am connected to the gas network and I have confidence in the system. I welcome that the report will be delivered as soon as next week but this incident has exposed a weakness in that having fixed a gas leak, the next stage of testing the homes in the area for the presence of gas was not undertaken. That is the critical issue. It is a missing element in what should have happened. We read, watch and listen to various advertisements that ask us to ring a number if we smell gas, not to smoke or use a naked flame or not to unplug a switch and so on. However, if one is not connected to the gas network, the last thing one would think is that one could be at risk. There is a responsibility on BGE to ensure when such an incident occurs, the neighbouring area is also protected because there is no way that someone would have thought that lighting a candle in a house using oil fired central heating could cause an explosion.

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