Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I would like to convey my condolences and the condolences of all my colleagues in the Labour Party to the families of Clare O'Neill, Michael Pyke and Fintan Goss. When Met Éireann warned of a risk to life, we all hoped that it might not prove to be the case. Unfortunately, it clearly was. The three families most involved have our sympathy and condolences and those of everyone in the House and throughout the country.

In the past 48 hours we have been served incredibly well by a wide range of public services. Met Éireann and the Office of Emergency Planning made sure that we were warned in a timely fashion of the imminent danger. The call to issue a red alert for the entire country must have been a difficult one to make but it was the right one. The calls by the Minister for Education and Skills and the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs to close all schools and crèches were also the right decisions. The decision to stay closed for a second day was the right one as well. It allowed school leaders to assess any damage or risk to children before they actually arrive at their school buildings. I hope the Minister for Education and Skills will also make a sensible call not to require schools to make up these days - clearly this could not have been planned for.

Countless others deserve our thanks, including the council workers in every council throughout the country, who worked through the night to clear trees and debris; the rescue services personnel, who put their lives at risk in some places where they really should not have been required to, as others have said; the public service broadcasters, public and private, at local and national level, who kept reminding people of the dangers that were evolving during the course of the day; the Garda; local authorities; ESB Networks crews; the Coast Guard; and RNLI volunteers – I saw the RNLI crew in my constituency take to the high seas when I was fearful of walking down the street yesterday. All these deserve our great thanks, as does the Government. The Government acted with calm throughout this particular episode. The Taoiseach can be happy with the work of his Government during the past 48 hours.

The severity of the storm certainly deserves a debate in the House as to our readiness for the overarching issue of climate change. The House has not debated the climate mitigation plan referenced by the Taoiseach. Such a debate would be timely, especially if it was well in advance of the publication and determination of the ten-year capital plan.

In the meanwhile, I have two questions. The first relates to how red alerts are understood. On Sunday night, we saw many companies unsure how to deal with their employees. Should we not have a clear understanding throughout the economy, as is the case in the education sector, of what should be done in the event of a red alert? I came across a report last year that goes back to 2010. The current Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney, was the Minister responsible at the time. It related to establishing a national text alert system. Public broadcasters are well and good but we could have a system, as envisaged in the 2010 report, where every individual in an affected area would have a specific warning. Is that something the Government will now look at?

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