Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister and the Minister of State on their new roles. I look forward to working with them over the course of the next term.

Over the past couple of weeks, we repeatedly heard the word "unprecedented" being used. Storm Éowyn was unprecedented. To a certain degree, we could never have prepared for a weather event of that extent. However, we could have prepared a whole lot better than we did. While the impact of the storm was unprecedented, it was not unforeseen. We have been repeatedly warned by all the different agencies and climate change experts that our weather events are going to become more extreme, that this is essentially a feature of the climate change that we have seen and that this will continue to be the case. I talked about the programme for Government earlier on in the context of climate issues. While I was engaged in research relating to that matter, I came across a modelling report from the EPA. This is the first time there has been specific modelling for Ireland in relation to the impacts of climate change on our country going forward towards the middle of the century. We are looking at a 1.1°C to 1.5°C increase in temperatures, primarily on the east coast. There is the potential for heatwaves and much more intense weather events similar to Storm Éowyn.

It is clear we are moving that way but also that we have already moved that way. This is now our reality. The first thing the Government needs to do is make sure that all those people who need support, including financial and advisory support, have it. I refer here to all those individuals who really felt left behind over the past two weeks. That is the immediate response we need from Government. We also need to see a plan put in place in case this ever happens again. The reality is that something of this nature will probably happen.

The Government did not have a plan, which I find quite astounding. There is an emergency framework plan for flooding. There are also plans for nuclear disasters and rail disasters. However, there is no plan for storms. I was surprised when I discovered that to be the case. The absence of a plan was clearly illustrated by the response to this storm. There was a chaotic feel to how the storm was dealt with. There was delay on the Government side. The ESB was responsible for doing the heavy lifting and-----

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