Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy raised some specifics regarding the generator, phone outages, etc. I will endeavour to get the Department to come back to her on those points. The written response I have is quite lengthy. I hope it will set out the plan and answer the Deputy's questions. I hope she has time to get to it.

With regard to the national development plan, in early April the Government agreed to commence the review process. Following this, my Department wrote to Departments to advise on the Government's approach to improving our infrastructure through the review. As outlined in the programme for Government, energy is a critical priority for investment, alongside housing, water, transport and health digitalisation.

The core focus of the review will be to ensure that supporting economic infrastructure can be prioritised to support the delivery of 300,000 additional homes and to boost our competitiveness.

I now move on to grid investment. Electricity is vital in daily life and customers need a dependable network to meet current and future needs. This is why investing in the network is key, investing for today and for the future. The Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, as an independent regulator, sanctions investment in the onshore electricity grid in five year cycles. More than €4 billion investment in the onshore electricity grid was approved for 2021 to 2025. Accelerating delivery of that investment is a priority for this Government and we have a working group under the accelerating renewable electricity task force tasked with doing just that.

Regarding planned grid Investment from 2026 to 2030, work has commenced on Price Review 6 which will see the CRU sanction the investment in the grid to 2030. A public consultation is expected from CRU by the end of June on its proposals under PR6. This will see major investment in the onshore electricity grid and represents a step change in grid development and investment, a process which will see further progressive scaling during the 2030s to meet future targets. These investments will start to deliver the building blocks on which we will expand our onshore grid out to 2050. The large-scale investment sought as part of PR6 will assist Ireland in maintaining a reliable and resilient electricity network to meet the needs of customers and society. This investment will deliver additional network capacity at all voltage levels, as well as allowing for significant investment in asset maintenance and replacement and measures to improve continuity of supply. Government supports all efforts to maximise the level of grid investment in 2026 to 2030 as part of the PR6 review and any further support sought through the NDP will be actively considered.

To deal with the disruptive events of storms and long-term impacts of climate change, as part of price review 6, ESB Networks is planning to implement a strategic approach to asset management to ensure that the investments are future-proofed and resilient. ESB Networks will also be part of a mutual association called NEWSAC, the North, East, West, South Area Consortium, which is composed of the electricity companies in Ireland and the UK. These companies provide mutual aid to support each other in the aftermath of storms. On 5 February, Cabinet requested that ESB Networks develop an Enhanced Winter 2025 Grid Resilience Plan as a key measure to be implemented in the lead up to winter 2025. The plan is to enhance the resilience of the grid in the most vulnerable locations for the upcoming winter. The ESB Networks Winter 2025 Grid Resilience Plan sets out actions across several key areas. These include the removal of hazards, post-storm inspection of the electricity network, forestry management, replenishment and expansion of stocks of materials and spares, and resourcing and innovation measures that will build resilience in the electricity network for the winter ahead.

Ensuring the climate resilience of communication networks in the immediate term and in preparation for longer term climate changes is a complex task which will require targeted investment. However, given the liberalised and privatised nature of the communication sector across both fixed and mobile networks, it is primarily for network operators to make the necessary investment to improve their networks’ resilience. Storm Éowyn has drawn attention to the current readiness of networks to withstand severe weather events. The major cause of service outages in the aftermath of Storm Éowyn was the result of cascading impacts mainly emanating from the lack of electricity. I have a further response and will come back in.

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