Louis O'Hara (Galway East, Sinn Fein)
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68. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment to outline the efforts made in recent months to restore broadband and phone infrastructure following storm Éowyn; if consideration will be given to establishing a system to update people on outages in their area, similar to the ESB Powercheck system; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16414/25]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)
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Following the damage caused to the telecoms networks by Storm Éowyn, on 14 February my colleague Minister O’Donovan met with senior executives of both mobile and fixed telecoms providers to reflect on the lessons to be learned, and measures to be considered to build further resilience into telecommunications networks to avoid, where feasible and practicable, a reoccurrence of the same level of disruption to services. The Minister requested that operators consider implementing a system similar to ESB’s PowerCheck.ie and industry committed to explore the idea and conduct feasibility work.

Since this meeting officials in my Department have been working with industry to progress a plan to improve network resilience to future severe weather events in the near term. This plan will also ensure that future restoration efforts take on board the lessons learned following Storm Éowyn. The development of this plan is ongoing.

My Department will incorporate learnings from Storm Éowyn into its plans for weather emergency preparedness and continue to engage with ComReg and operators to formalise storm response processes and the roles all organisations will play in improving resilience, restoring connectivity and interacting with the national emergency response structures.

To accelerate restoration efforts for their network following Storm Éowyn, National Broadband Ireland (NBI) implemented several measures and were fully mobilised. Crews worked across all counties to restore services as quickly as possible.

My officials have been informed by NBI that the following actions were taken:

• NBI opened and maintained communication channels with Retail Service Providers, providing real-time updates on completed or scheduled repair works, including notifications when service is restored to end users. This system enables providers to notify end users of any updates or changes in real time.
• NBI mobilised four additional subcontractors whose efforts in supporting repair and assurance works have been crucial to reconnecting end users as swiftly as possible.
• NBI liaised with existing subcontractors to ensure that all allocated resources across the National Broadband Plan (NBP) are prioritising storm recovery.
• NBI coordinated the supply of additional materials and equipment to support field teams.
• NBI engaged five fibre-splicing crews from the UK, to assist with repairs.