Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party) | Oireachtas source

I extend my sincere gratitude to the Irish and international workers for their tremendous efforts to date. I am fully aware of the hardships faced by many, especially in the west and parts of the midlands. I happened to be in Whitehall and Castlebrock, Longford, over the weekend and witnessed the extensive damage at first hand, with trees lying across roads and houses with large trees having fallen against them, broadband boxes hanging off poles and wires strewn everywhere. The response from the Government was appallingly slow, particularly for the most vulnerable, including our elderly, sick and farming community. Action must now take place to cut back trees to 30 m from roadsides and power lines to prevent future incidents that will end lives. Trees can be sown inside lands in future.

There are still people without electricity, hot food, water and other basic essentials. Ireland is not a Third World country, but the way we reacted to this storm made us look like one. An 8 kVA generator is sufficient to power an average house in the event of a power outage. Such a generator would cost approximately €1,500 and the cost of wiring the house with a changeover switch would be about €1,000. Grants should be made available to all ESB customers in rural Ireland to enable them to have standby generators. These grants can come from the massive profits the ESB makes from its customers.

Questions also need asking of Uisce Éireann. I am reliably informed it has no generator in its water or wastewater treatment plants to be used if the storm had taken Cork harder than it did. Inniscarra could have lost power, thus closing thousands of jobs, so to speak, and affecting hospitals and everyone else on the Inniscarra line. This is the same for water and wastewater treatment plants in Cork county. As far as I am aware, there is not even a changeover switch in any of these plants. This, when the agency has specific employees paid to oversee generators in these plants, is unacceptable.

See this speech in context