Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)

This is not a Topical Issue that I wanted to bring to the Dáil but it relates is an ongoing situation over a number of months. I am disappointed it had to get to this point. It is very clear that six months after Storm Bert and Storm Darragh, and five months after Storm Éowyn, there is no plan from the Government on how to deal with the infrastructural deficit that has had a huge impact across Connemara. I totally understand that we could not have anticipated the impact Storm Éowyn was going to have. The problem for people across Connemara is it was not something new. Storm Bert and Storm Darragh had a serious impact on that whole area. After Storm Darragh there were people without phone coverage and broadband for weeks, with limited, if any, contact from their network providers. What has the Government done in terms of engagement and direct contact with these companies recently? This is an ongoing issue. Has there been any accountability? What kind of accountability can the Government actually give?

The problem is that since Storm Éowyn there have been consistent power outages, even in May and June. I regularly hear on Raidió na Gaeltachta and from constituents about people who have no power for 12 hours at a time during the summer months. There have been consistent power outages. One woman who lives in the Ballyconneely area contacted me this week. Her power has gone ten times since October. It is not just her electricity; her water is impacted because the pump needs power to operate. She has no water when there is a power outage. It has happened ten times since October. After Storm Éowyn there were clear calls for generators to be put in place at those water pumps. Does the Minister of State know what the story is with that? Obviously, people being without water is a serious issue. That kind of thing cannot continue.

A family who live outside Oughterard, which is not far from Galway City, were in touch with me. They were 95 days without a phone line after Storm Éowyn. The most shocking of all was an email I got from a woman last Friday. She is trying to help her elderly neighbour. This man lives alone in a very rural part of Connemara and his phone line has only worked for three weeks since last November. The phone is a lifeline for somebody like that. We are talking about people who have panic buttons not being able to use the panic button or a phone. She told me there are six houses on the road and an awful lot of elderly people living on that road, and their panic buttons are not working. She said on that same road during Storm Éowyn they had the following experience. The Minister of State will remember that in parts of Connemara TETRA was not working and one could not ring 999. Among these six houses there was a woman who needed an ambulance and oxygen. Her neighbours had to travel to get a mobile phone signal so they could ring an ambulance.

These really serious issues continue to affect an awful lot of people across Connemara but there does not seem to be any plan in place to fix them. Nobody expects it to happen overnight; it is clear there are basic infrastructural deficits. There does not seem to be a plan of action coming from the Government, however. We also have health centres that are still losing their phone lines. If a health centre does not have a phone line, there is no way of contacting the hospital or an ambulance in the case of a health emergency. At the time of Storm Éowyn there was a call for generators for these health centres and also for the provision of satellite phones.

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