Mark Wall (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I join colleagues in sending condolences to the O'Rourke and Naughten families and I second Senator Sherlock's proposal regarding No. 12 on the Order Paper.

In the last couple of weeks in particular, I have been contacted by a number of people who were affected by unplanned power outages in Kildare South. There seems to be a concentration of these outages in the Lackagh, Monasterevin and Rathangan areas, right across to Athgarvan and mid-Kildare. There are several problems with the outages, apart from the obvious fact that they are unplanned. A number of the people who have contacted me are working from home but unfortunately, because the outages are becoming a bit of a habit, they cannot continue to do so.When I raised this in the past number of days, a number of families contacted me about the number and their use of medical devices and the fact they cannot continue to use them because of the outages that happen. It is time we brought in the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications to have a discussion about what is happening with our power in this country.

EirGrid's website states: "EirGrid develops, manages and operates the electricity grid in Ireland" making sure everyone has electricity when and where they need it. That has not been happening in Kildare South for the past number of months for some reason. I want to read into the record some of the comments I have received from people. The first one said that power was out today again in Monasterevin with no reason or explanation provided. The exact same thing happened Friday two weeks ago. There is no consideration given for anyone or for those who have a day's work or are working from home. It is absolutely ridiculous.

Another person states that in the past three months there have been five unplanned power outages in Mountrice, Lackagh as of that day. The person went on to detail those five outages. We have two working from home in Athgarvan. No notice was given and it is very frustrating. It is time we discussed those unplanned outages.