Barry Ward (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Is é sin an chéad deis a bhí agam labhairt sa Dáil ó tóghadh mé anuraidh. Gabhaim buíochas le muintir Dhún Laoghaire as ucht a muinín a chur ionam agus tugaim aitheantas do chabhair mo chlainne, go háirithe cabhair mo bhean chéile, Aoife, agus m'iníon, Robin, agus do chabhair mo chairde, mo chomhghleacaithe agus bhaill Fhine Gael i mBaile Átha Cliath. Ar an dea-uair, i nDún Laoghaire, d'éirigh linn éalú ó na héifeachtaí ba mheasa a bhí ag Stoirm Éowyn. Cé go raibh damáiste agus crainn a tháinig anuas le linn na stoirme, níor fhulaing muid ó na gearrthacha cumhachta a bhí le feiceáil ar fud na tíre. Cé go bhfuilim buíoch gur fheidhmigh an rabhadh dearg ó Mhet Éireann agus gur sábháladh daoine mar thoradh air sin, ní mór ceachtanna a bheith ann ó mhéid na stoirme agus ón éifeacht a bhí aici ar phobail i ngach áit in Éirinn.

What are those learnings to be? While I agree with many of the contributors that we must pay tribute to the workers from ESB, and to our European colleagues from France to Finland who came to Ireland to help those workers do the repairs that need to be done, we must also look at what we can do to insulate the country against future damage that might happen in these storms. We know these storms are coming and they will be more frequent and, hopefully not but possibly, more powerful as well.

In that regard, the location of electricity cables must be addressed. I certainly think we should be making a decision at this juncture that no new build or new development should come with overhead cables. Clearly, they are vulnerable to storms and we should always locate them underground. Retrofitting creates other problems. We should be reviewing whether it is possible, for example, to have much larger-scale undergrounding, if I can use that word, of major power cables, particularly the main lines, the interconnectors with Northern Ireland and, ultimately, the power that is going to come through the Celtic interconnector from France as well. I know that is an expensive project but we should certainly be carrying out a review to see if the investment in that kind of work is worth it from the point of view of insulating the country from what might happen in the future. That viability may well be part of the solution.

Equally, with regard to generators, it seems extraordinary that we would ever allow to reoccur that our water treatment and water pumping facilities are simply shut down because the power lines are not working. Every single one of them should have an individual emergency backup generator to make sure that, at the very minimum, households have water throughout the country. There is a job to be done to look at what we can do to make sure we are prepared for the next instance because we know it is coming.

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