Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputy for his timely question. He will know and acknowledge that Storm Éowyn was one of the most severe weather events to impact Ireland in recent decades. At its peak, as we are all acutely aware, including the Minister of State, Deputy Dillon, and I who were dealing with it at the time - 768,000 customers were without electricity. Despite these challenges, ESB Networks restored power to most impacted customers within 72 hours. The Deputy is right, however, that many others waited for three weeks.

I commend all of our teams across the country who worked extremely hard to reconnect power and communications.

We must continue to strengthen the capacity of the electricity grid to withstand further extreme weather events, and a range of targeted measures are now being advanced to do just that.

Following the storm, I brought forward a memo to Government on 5 February requiring the development of an ESB Networks winter 2025 grid resilience plan. This plan was approved by the Government on 8 April and set out the actions across key areas, including hazard removal and surveying, forestry management, materials and spares review, resourcing and innovation measures that will increase resilience of the electricity network for the winter ahead.

Progress has been significant. Defect and hazard clearance is actively under way with additional timber contractors to be mobilised to tackle large vegetation clearance, ESBN continues to target and prioritise the inspection of the network in the worst affected areas, a lot of them in the north west, through the use of helicopter, drone and foot surveys. At the most recent energy security group meeting, ESBN presented a status update. As of 4 June, while the national programme of network inspection continues, the status of the survey regarding the prioritised portion of the network since Storm Éowyn is as follows: approximately 70% of the transmission network, or 4,994 km of 7,000 km and 98% or the 38 cabling network or 5,565 km of 5,600 km have been surveyed. I will give more information during the supplementary response.

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