Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Last month, Storm Éowyn rampaged across our country, causing havoc in its wake. Our power grid was crippled, with smaller communities especially devastated and left without power for weeks on end. Despite the best efforts of ESB Networks and international volunteers, getting repairs done quickly proved a challenge. I thank everyone on the front line for their work, but nationally this is another wake-up call and successive governments have been asleep at the wheel for more than a decade. Judging by the final Sinn Féin contribution to this debate, it looks like its members are supporters of Trump - drill, baby, drill and keep the carbon coming - with no solution there either.

We knew the climate was changing. Last month was the warmest January ever, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, despite the cooling influence of La Niña. We have now shifted to the next level of instability and it is only going to get worse until global leaders work collectively to avoid the worst-case scenario. That means us too. This storm broke wind speed records at four stations and reached hurricane force at two stations. It is not a once-in-a-lifetime storm risk anymore. If the Government is lucky, it will be a storm that happens once in the lifetime of the Government. It is going to happen again soon and preparations need to be made now, not just for inevitable emergency responses but on the grid itself. We cannot afford massive undergrounding but we need to make our network resilient. We need localised electricity grids that can be connected to central and regional plants. In the programme for Government, however, there are very few tangible plans, just a few vague lines. We need to be explicit and time-based. Rural Ireland, in particular, has massive potential for microgeneration, self-sufficient storage and sharing inter-regional grid hubs, but we need to plan the system in a different way.

I acknowledge there has been more discussion about the water services network but, again, we have no tangible plan for action. We have to wake up and smell the coffee. We are past the point of no return. We cannot have further statements like this in another two or three years and say the same spiel again.

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