Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, on his recent appointment. I wish him well in his new role. I have no doubt he has hit the ground running.

The Minister of State will be aware that a public meeting was hosted by the secretariat of the Leitrim public participation network, PPN, in Ballinamore, County Leitrim, on Thursday last, 23 January. This was a significant date as it was the night before Storm Éowyn hit our island. I commend the Leitrim PPN for organising the meeting. The meeting's main focus was the terrible impact around the constant loss of electric power for long periods following Storm Darragh in December when many households were out of power for over two weeks. Many are experiencing their fifth and six outage over the preceding 12 months. This is, to say the least, unbearable living conditions. I could talk at length about the impact of this on my constituents who live in rural Leitrim, Sligo, Roscommon, Donegal and the west and north west, but my time would diminish. Suffice to say there are still tens of thousands of people in those counties and around the country going into their 13th day without power. Given the turn in the temperature life is very challenging. We must focus on why this is happening and what the Minister of State can do to reduce the impact of multiple power outages in rural parts of the north west.

It is estimated that one third of the available land in Leitrim is covered by forestry. I do not intend to go into that debate but will focus on the point that there are multiples of kilometres of lines, both high and low voltage, running through these forests. In many cases they are less than 5 m from a tree. Hundreds of these trees fall on lines in the course of a year and then inevitably the power is out. The access to some of these forests is akin to getting into the deepest jungles anywhere in the world and requires heavy-duty machinery.

I understand from personal correspondence to my office that when I sent the Leitrim PPN report from that meeting that the Minister of State has not delayed and has, in fact, proceeded to act. He has moved to set up a task force to deal with the crisis, which I hope would include the following: that the Department would engage in a mapping exercise in conjunction with ESB Networks to understand and see where electric lines are running through forestation; to determine a proper distance and an agreed setback of power lines from trees; to clarify the legal entitlements of the ESB and its contractors to go on lands to clear trees that are dangerously close to power lines; to clarify the issue around felling licences for such clearances and the need to provide a Department exemption for same for forest owners and managers; and consider the introduction of by-laws to reinforce the responsibility of forest owners. Finally, I ask that the Minister of State would have regular reviews and meetings of the said task force to determine progress and ensure that another storm will not have the impacts of the ones that came before.

The last two weeks have been incredibly difficult for the families, the farmers, the people in the west and the north west, as well across the country. I commend the front-line people who have worked so hard, namely, the ESB, the local authorities, Coillte and the many other people working. We need to do better, however. In my 25 years in politics it absolutely has been the hardest time that I have seen people experience on the ground. They have run out of patience. They are angry and have a right to be angry. I believe that as a Government we need to do more. I believe that the Army should have been called in. They should have been there to help. Other people have said they are not skilled but they have great resources and great skills and they should have been there to help. It would have sent out a signal that we were prepared as a Government to help our people in the west and north west, from Dublin. I believe it is an opportunity missed but we need to learn from this and I believe we will.

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