Written answers
Tuesday, 10 June 2025
Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Departmental Inquiries
Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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733. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the actions he has sought from Eir following storm Éowyn; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30909/25]
Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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734. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the communication he has had with Eir following storm Éowyn; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30916/25]
Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 733 and 734 together.
Since the occurrence of Storm Éowyn at the end of January I have been monitoring the progress of the operators in terms of the restoration of their services to customers across the country.
In the immediate aftermath of the storm I held a meeting with both fixed and mobile network operators, including Eir, to understand how they had been impacted and to hear about their initial plans to improve network resilience.
Since then, a meeting of the Mobile Phone and Broadband Taskforce was convened on 21 May 2025 at which issues around network resilience and service restoration were addressed. While Eir and other relevant operators were in attendance at the taskforce meeting, an industry-wide perspective on resilience and restoration was presented by IBEC’s Telecommunications Industry Ireland, the sectors’ representative body.
To get a clearer understanding of what each operator has done, and will do, I have since requested that operators, including Eir, provide their individual updates on a number of key points: lessons that have been learned in the aftermath of Storm Éowyn; actions that Eir has already taken to improve both network resilience and organisational preparedness for storm events; and any further such actions that will be undertaken by Eir in advance of next winter.
I will also be meeting with Eir in the coming weeks to discuss this and other issues with them directly.
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