Paul Lawless (Mayo, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

The level of frustration in Mayo and right across the west is really palpable. Many thousands of people in Mayo are still without power. That is 13 days without being able to heat their homes or cook for themselves. What has happened in recent days has been really shocking. Elderly people are shivering in their beds. Sick and isolated people in rural areas are unable to contact their GP. Today, elderly people and people in isolated areas are still unable to make contact with emergency services and their GP, yet this Government moves more quickly to go on holidays in the eye of the storm than to get into action to help our citizens in their greatest period of need.

Hotels and other accommodation should been offered immediately to the most vulnerable people in the west. We can offer accommodation to people seeking international protection for years, yet we cannot do it for our most vulnerable people. These are people with respiratory or heart conditions, for example, who rely on plug-in devices to survive. These are the vulnerable customers of the ESB.

What priority was given to these vulnerable customers? All I could see was nothing. No help was given to those people. I call on the Government to immediately initiate a task force to understand the lessons and what we need to do. We need to get ESB, Uisce Éireann, Coillte and Eir in a room and get proactive in solving this. The ESB network, the Eir network and the NBI network need to be protected. Existing trees along the route need to be cleared immediately. We do not have time to wait for months for felling licences. We need to prepare now for the next storm. Ash dieback is another big issue. We need a scheme similar to the local improvement schemes to work with farmers to address ash dieback.

Generators in water treatment plants must become a mandatory part of Uisce Éireann's machinery. We also need generators for private dwellings. Government policy has incentivised and in some cases forced people into chimneyless homes and we also need to protect those people and give them a backup.

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