Martin Daly presses for Defence role after Storm Eoin response

I would like to ask the Tawnish Minister of Defence, in the context of Storm Eoin, the specific protocols and contingency plans in place to ensure Defence Force's assistance in future natural disasters, the criteria that are used to determine Defence Force's deployment in such emergency situations, and if you will make a statement on the matter. Thank you. Thank you very much to Deputy Daly for raising this important and timely question. In the aftermath of Storm Eoin, something that I know brought so much devastation to so much of our country, and perhaps to your own part of the country, in terms of the West and the North West region as well. At the outset, Cahirlaq, I would like to take the opportunity on the record of this House to recognise the contribution made by our civil defence units and by our defence forces in helping those worst affected by the recent Storm Eoin, as Minister for Defence as their Minister. I want to thank them for their service and for all that they have done. I am particularly grateful to the Civil Defence volunteers who were on stinting in supporting their local communities. I had the opportunity with Tiffany David Maxwell to visit the Civil Defence in Monaghan and see firsthand what those volunteers were undertaking. Yet again, it was a reminder to all of us in this House and people right across the country that we collectively owe the volunteers of the Civil Defence a huge debt of gratitude. In relation to the Defence Forces, while they are not the primary response agency for non-security related emergencies, they were requested to provide assistance to the appropriate lead department in the event of a natural disaster or emergency situation in their aid to civil authority role. With regard to Storm Eoin, the Defence Forces received an accommodated request for assistance under GTF mechanisms from a number of agencies. They did provide assistance ranging from air patrols of electricity lines by the Air Corps, their readiness to support the National Ambulance Service, they provided accommodation for prison staff during the red warning phase, they provided provision and transportation of equipment and supplies, notably generators, to the affected areas. My colleagues in Government and I are very mindful of the impact of this storm and indeed looking to the future, we have made it very clear to the State Service providers that any lessons learnt must be incorporated into future planning and to the development of the necessary resilience to minimise such impacts, should a comparable weather event occur of this magnitude again. I understand that the review process would be led by the Department of Housing and Local Government on my own department through the Office of Emergency Planning will engage in the same. I should say just finally, Cahirlac, I suppose, and again, probably understanding the frustration of a lot of your constituents, the Deputy Daily, who may have been without power and water supply for significant periods of time. In relation to this storm, I suppose a lot of the technical expertise that was required. It may not have been expertise readily available to the Defence Forces but was available to other agencies. But we were trying in every opportunity possible to provide practical assistance in terms of transporting of equipment, providing accommodation and, like I say, the Civil Defence very much being on the ground, helping those, particularly those most vulnerable members of communities. I'm reassured by your answer in relation to the Army's role in any future natural disaster. I do think we must put it into the context of the devastation that was caused in the west coast of Ireland, especially, most especially in the Ruscon and Galway constituency, which I represent, but also West Galway, Leitrim cabin. Forest down road blocked, water gone, electricity gone, water gone in some cases for up to 20 days. I mean, this was an intolerable situation. It was unprecedented. I paid tribute to the SB networks, to the local authority workers, to the voluntary groups, the sporting groups and the emergency hub workers. However, I do feel it was really important and I think people on the ground would have liked the visibility of the Army out on the ground, helping people in that situation. Thank you. Thanks very much and thanks to Deputy Connolly as well as Deputy Dalian. I think it's my first time to engage with Deputy Connolly in this. I congratulate him on his election to Dole Eyre and I look forward to working with him. Look, I take the point, and as Deputy Connolly says, I might contest or you might contest or we might contest the views of some, but regardless of whether we contest them or not, I absolutely accept the deeply held views. It's exactly how people felt in large parts of this country and I've heard very clearly from people in the West and the North West how they did feel extremely isolated, extremely anxious and they did wonder, was the electricity ever going to come back on? And I mean, whatever about managing without electricity or water for a day or two, which is not an insignificant challenge, the number of people who had to manage for many, many weeks is almost unimaginable in terms of the gravity of that challenge that that posed. Now I think, look, as a government and as state agencies and as community organisations, I think everybody did put their shoulder to the wheel. I think we did see the best of Irish mehel in terms of people trying to respond. I think we did see the benefits of the investment we've made over a number of years in community facilities, that in many parts of the country we had sports clubs with shower facilities and others that were readily made available to communities and I thank those sports clubs for that. We did see the civil defence, which I'm proud to be their minister for, play a very, very much on the ground, boots on the ground role. And I did see the defence forces respond to every request that was made of them. So the way it works, I suppose, is the defence forces respond to requests from the civil authority, from local authorities. I do think in fairness to everyone, because I'm not blaming any local authorities, everyone was working hard. I do think there was a technical expertise piece that perhaps wasn't readily available to the defence forces in some of the issues that would have been pressing to your constituents. But let me be very clear. The state has to do better. The state has to be better prepared for adverse weather events. And that's why myself, the Taoiseach and others in government are determined that the lessons learned thing isn't just a box ticket exercise, but it's actually a real deep dive into what went well, where went well, because it wasn't consistent right across the country, and what can go better. And the defence forces will be very willing to play a full and honest role in that assessment. Again, I'm reassured by what the Taoiseach just says. I think what we need is that there's a reassurance that we learn lessons from the storm. There needs to be the three corridors. We need Ishgeir to be generator ready. We need our local group water schemes to be generator ready. These are the group, the three corridors issue might be a bit more complicated to solve, but it has to be solved in the national interest. When 700,000 households were without electricity, some of them up to almost three weeks. And so in that context, I think people need to be reassured that every asset of the state is put into play when we're under pressure with an emergency that struck the West Coast in particular. But I think also, in retrospect, perhaps we should have called the state of emergency and utilised all those assets. But again, it's easy in retrospect to say that. I just think we need to learn the lessons from that storm. Thank you. And Deputy Daley, look, I agree. And I think we have to recognise here, there are certain things we have to do at a national level, no pass in the book in relation to that. But actually, where things worked well, it was at a local level. And I think one of the things we have to do, and I know this is the view shared by our colleagues, the Taoiseach, by all members of the government, and by government parties, is where I think what we have to do at is resourcing local communities and empowering the local authorities. So where is the generator in the community? Where are the emergency facilities, shower facilities? What is the plan if the telecommunications network goes down? And we're all so reliant on technology these days. What's available in terms of the civil defence? And I think mapping that out better at a local level, and us resourcing it and financing it, supporting it, I think without pre-empting the review, I'm very confident that's going to be one of the things. Let me just say one thing, though, that I think did work well was the red weather alert. And whilst I'm very conscious that one man tragically lost his life, and we think of him and we think of his family, it is a near miracle that we didn't see even more fatalities. And I think that, you know, you hear a lot of this kind of nonsense on social media about, you know, scaremongering around weather warnings. I think one of the lessons that we need to be learned from this is that these weather warnings are serious. When they're put in place, they're put in place for a reason. And we should be encouraging our authorities to continue to do what they were doing, being forthcoming with them, being honest and blunt with the Irish people in relation to them, because I've no doubt that that did help save lives. And final point I want to make in the 17 seconds available to me is I agree with you in relation to the trees. We're now spending a fair whack of money every year putting back up electricity poles and wires that have been knocked down by trees. It's not a sustainable situation. We need more trees in the country. We all love trees. We need to put them in the right place.