Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank the ESB, councils, communities and individuals for the work they have done and the support they have shown to each other. Again, as we saw during Covid, ordinary people and communities in this country showed the way forward while the Government followed behind, very delayed and inadequately. The Government failed to take a serious emergency response to this storm, just like it failed to take an emergency response to the housing crisis. It is important to highlight that it was not just in rural areas that people lost their electricity. People in Glasnevin and Santry in my constituency, including vulnerable adults and families, were without power where trees fell on electricity lines and caused power outages for several days. Clearly, this was not on the scale of what happened in rural counties but significant distress was experienced. Local residents' associations, such as the Wadelai-Hillcrest and District Residents Association, provided great support. People also contacted me.

It is important we come back again to the point regarding the Government seriously acknowledging that its response was really a botched one to this absolute emergency. The Government needs to plan better. Indeed, its own Minister agreed to this on RTÉ last week when it was said the Government does need to plan better and it should have had the emergency hubs in place long before this storm. I think the Government was distracted in its response by the mess it created in its stroke with its new partners in the regional Independents and trying to cover up that storm instead of actually responding to the real storm that needed an emergency response. Vulnerable people I know in the west of Ireland who were supposed to be contacted by the HSE were not contacted. We need better responses from our State.

We also need to acknowledge that this is climate change and this is the climate emergency. Storm Éowyn broke wind speed records. The highest wind speeds since records began were recorded in County Galway. The figures out today from the European Union's climate research agency show that January was the warmest month globally. Global warming increases the likelihood and intensity of extreme weather events. My question for the Government is where is the preparation for the next storm.

We have had snow and wind. What preparation is in place so that we are not scrambling as we were in the response to this storm in all the areas?

Short- and long-term measures are required. One medium-term measure, although it could also be taken in the short term, is the way in which we could support people to be resilient when these emergency storms happen. One area is the roll-out of renewable energy on an individual basis for a house or apartment block on a block-by-block basis. We know that there are ways in which solar energy and solar panels can be supported to provide electricity to an individual home. The question is why this is not being done more. In particular, why is it not being done in places that are more vulnerable to storms so that in future people will have their own independent electricity supply, which does not rely on having a car that might plug in? The provision of renewable energy in homes is an area that the Government has acknowledged is a win-win. It provides cheaper electricity. It also enables homes to reduce their carbon emissions. The problem is only some people can afford to invest in renewable energy and in solar panels on their homes. Most people cannot do so. They do not have any money to put into investment in their homes. We can see this in the cost-of-living crisis. Where is the expediting of the roll-out of solar panels on everybody's home? Where will the State ensure that everybody can access renewable energy?

The other area is the issue of local authorities. This comes under my brief of housing and local government. Local authorities responded. A number of them worked very hard to respond. They set up co-ordination groups and emergency nodes to respond to the storm. As we all know in this House, the issue is that local authorities are completely underfunded. They are stretched in the resources they have. The people in them are working as hard as they can but they lack resources and funding. Why is this? This is again a question. It is the result of decades of underfunding by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments, which failed to develop a strong, empowered, local State. Instead, it has been 40 years of privatisation, outsourcing and underfunding of our local authorities.

I will give one small example that is very pertinent, which is the issue of trees. Tree maintenance is a responsibility of our local authorities, yet week after week we get complaints from the public about the inadequate maintenance of trees. That is not asking for trees to be chopped down but, rather, asking for them to be pruned and maintained properly. If trees were maintained properly, we could avoid situations such as trees knocking down electricity lines. One constituent sent a photograph to me during the storm of one tree completely lying over and pulling up the pavement. This is a lack of maintenance by local authorities. When we ask them when they will do this maintenance, they give us a huge extended timeline. The issue is they have outsourced it. They have outsourced it to private companies because local authorities do not have the capacity themselves. My question to the Government is when will we develop a properly resourced and properly funded local authority system in this country that actually has the capacity to respond to snow and wind, and to maintain our trees and public infrastructure? This is all part of emergency responses and emergency planning.

I again thank the ESB, local authorities and local community organisations that worked so hard to support people and continue to work and support people. I reiterate that this Government failed in its first test of being able to act in its position as the Government. It is to be hoped that we will not see a repeat of this and will see emergency responses, a sense of urgency regarding this storm and the other emergencies we face, especially the housing crisis.

See this speech in context