John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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178. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the steps his Department is taking to ensure the resilience of the communications system used to contact the emergency services; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34640/25]

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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In light of the disruption to communication services experienced in the aftermath of Storm Éowyn my Department has been progressing a number of actions to ensure that the communication sector becomes more resilient to the effects of severe weather.

Contact with the emergency services happens through the Emergency Call Answering System (ECAS). While it was reported that people were unable to contact the ECAS which provides the 999/112 services, it should be noted that at no time was this service interrupted and the call centre remained fully operational during and in the aftermath of Storm Éowyn. Where individuals had difficulty in contacting the service, this was due to a total loss of fixed line or mobile telephone service in their areas. For those individuals who have a mobile phone, but whose operator was experiencing service outages, they would have been able to contact ECAS on any other mobile operator’s network where that network was available.

Both my Department and the operators have been reviewing their overall preparedness and resilience in light of the storm. The biggest impact to the communication networks in the aftermath of the storm was the sustained loss of grid power owing to the significant damage to the electricity network. While mobile and fixed network operators maintain both batteries and emergency generators at key sites, the length of the grid power outage coupled with site access issues caused by downed trees and vegetation overwhelmed their back-up strategies in some locations. My Department is progressing actions to ensure that site access issues are improved before next winter.

My Department is also developing a longer-term plan to identify where additional measures may need to be taken to build additional resilience into communication networks in anticipation of the forecast worsening effects of climate change. A draft of this Climate Resilience Adaptation Plan will be published later this year.