Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ar dtús báire, ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh an Aire Stáit. I welcome the Minister of State to the House. We all know we are facing into a tumultuous winter. Many people are terrified of the energy bills that will land on their doormats. Families are also concerned about the prospect of blackouts. Unfortunately I remember when we used to have blackouts. They were quite a regular occurrence in Ireland. Most people are unfamiliar with blackouts and they see a functioning energy system as part of the social contract they enter into with the State.

Another part of the social contract we take for granted is that our phones and the Internet will work. This too, it appears, is in doubt. The electricity outages we potentially face come with the threat of mobile phone and broadband blackouts. Once unthinkable scenarios are now a very real prospect. I have seen reports that 999 emergency calls could also be affected. One of the comforts in the blackouts years ago was that we had landlines and public phones. We knew that if anything went wrong we could still call for help or even just for comfort. The corded landline did not need additional electricity to run. Unfortunately those times have changed. Even after the power comes back, we could be seeing prolonged outages of the mobile and broadband networks because the power outages increase the probability of electronic components failing if subjected to abrupt interruptions.

How exposed are we? What contingencies are built into our communications networks? Throughout Europe the mobile phone mast antennae come with batteries that can last for up to 30 minutes in the event of a blackout. Do the masts here have this facility? How long can they survive a power outage?

We know that in a gas supply outage, procedure dictates that some customers must be prioritised. For example, an industry's gas supply is restrained before a hospital's gas supply and households are prioritised. If there are electricity outages by the system operators, will they be able to isolate the mobile phone network antennae when they are cutting power to sections of the grid? Reports from France and other EU countries are that it is not possible to isolate them and maintain power to them.

On 7 September, the Minister announced that joint gas and electricity emergency training exercises would be held. These involved Gas Networks Ireland, EirGrid, ESB Networks and the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU. Did these exercises take account of communications networks? Did they look at scenarios where those communications networks would be knocked out? What mitigation attempts are being put in place by the Department? We know that telecoms companies throughout Europe are snapping up emergency generators.

Things are very serious. Nobody wants the lights to go out. Certainly the Opposition and members of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action have worked very hard and co-operated with the Minister. We are concerned that we are seeing a regular pattern of rushed legislation and requests to waive pre-legislative scrutiny. Only this week we were asked to waive pre-legislative scrutiny on a Bill that would disapply the planning system and the environmental impact assessment process with regard to emergency generators.

We all have concerns about blackouts. There can be knock-on and unintended consequences, one of which I am raising today with regard to communications networks and mobile phones. What contingency plans has the Government put in place?