Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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1283. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government to provide details of all infrastructure investments undertaken by Met Éireann from 2020 to date in 2025; and the future investments planned or underway by the national meteorological service. [47026/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Met Éireann has made significant infrastructure investments during the period 2020 to date in 2025 across areas including ICT, meteorological observation systems and flood forecasting. Met Éireann's capital expenditure from 2020 to 2024 inclusive has been €38.5 million. Investment of this scale is continuing for 2025 and is planned to continue for the years ahead supporting the implementation of Met Éireann’s strategic plan 2024-2034, to make Ireland ready for changing weather and climate. 

ICT: 

Since 2020, Met Éireann has completed a significant ICT infrastructure refresh aimed at improving system performance, resilience, and scalability to further support the delivery of its 24/7 operational services. This initiative included a comprehensive upgrade of core compute, network, and storage environments, ensuring Met Éireann can meet growing operational demands and support real-time meteorological data processing. As part of this project, enhanced security controls and monitoring capabilities were implemented to strengthen our cybersecurity posture. Met Éireann, in collaboration with the National Meteorological Institutes of Denmark, Iceland, and the Netherlands, has invested in the procurement of a shared supercomputing platform which is running Met Éireann weather forecasting 24/7 operations since Summer 2024. This strategic infrastructure project significantly enhances our forecasting capabilities, enabling more timely and accurate weather forecasts. The investment supports Ireland’s preparedness for increasingly extreme and complex weather patterns in our changing climate. Further investment and refresh of Met Éireann’s ICT systems are planned for coming years including expansion of computational capacity to support growing research and implementation of AI applications. 

Meteorological Observation Systems: 

Investments in meteorological observations since 2020 have encompassed the upgrading and expansion of Met Éireann’s atmospheric and environmental monitoring programmes, including replacement of the Weather Radar at Shannon airport, completed in 2023, and expansion of ground-based measurements of rainfall and temperature. Future significant investments in planning include the modernisation and expansion of the Weather Radar network and further expansion of ground-based rainfall monitoring. 

Flood Forecasting: 

As part of the wider, multi-partner National Flood Forecasting and Warning Service, Met Éireann invested in the establishment of the Flood Forecasting Centre, which became operational in early 2024 and provides flood information on fluvial (river) and coastal flooding at a national and catchment scale to local authorities and other emergency management state stakeholders. Investments made include modelling, visualisation and communication systems. Further investment in this area to fulfil Met Éireann’s role in the National Flood Forecasting and Warning Service will be required.