Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I take this opportunity to compliment all the front-line workers, the ESB and local authority workers, the fire services, the Civil Defence and the many people in our sporting and voluntary organisations who really rose to the challenge of helping people, particularly people who are vulnerable and those who were without power, connectivity or a water supply in their homes. There is a lesson for the ESB at corporate level, at board level, and at chief executive and senior management level regarding what is being done about more and more investment in the grid over the years. I mentioned yesterday - I raised this on plenty of occasions in this House previously - the need to ensure the transmission line corridors are free of obstacles. That has not been done. Forests and plantations have not been maintained to a proper standard. In my county and neighbouring counties, a main source of problems has been falling trees damaging and breaking ESB transmission lines. There has been blanket forestry in place and that is not acceptable. This Government must tackle that by ensuring that there is an even spread of forestry plantations throughout the country and that some communities are not under siege, which is what is happening in some areas due to the growth of more and more forestry plantations. It can be done. There can be an even spread of plantations throughout the country but that must be addressed as urgently as possible.

One thing that always concerns me - it concerned me in the many debates we had here during Covid - is the need for us to ensure we reach the vulnerable and hard-to-reach people. A protocol must be put in place to ensure our statutory agencies- the HSE, our local authorities, An Post or the ESB - work together to ensure there is a knowledge of all people who are vulnerable. I know from engaging with officials at local level there is a reluctance at times to disclose information because of GDPR. I appreciate that but there must be a protocol to ensure that when an emergency arises, the statutory agencies know who may be vulnerable and who needs to be contacted to ensure they are safe and well. That can be addressed at national level. We should not be leaving it until the next storm. We should be addressing those issues now. I want to pay tribute to the people in our statutory agencies who worked extremely hard and to the many sporting and voluntary organisations that are continuing to provide much-needed support to people who unfortunately are still without electricity, water supplies and connectivity in their homes.

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