2026-01-15

Storm Éowyn was the first test for this Government in the new Dáil term. It took almost three weeks for power and connectivity to be restored to all homes, farms, schools, businesses and clubs. The Government failed its first test. Lessons have to be learned. Ministers cannot just sit in meetings or berate Internet providers, because we will have another storm like Storm Éowyn. Power and connectivity will be lost again, especially in rural Ireland, and we must do everything to mitigate the risks. We must take proactive steps now and into the future to remove potential threats to the network. Storm Éowyn damaged or took down more than 6,000 telephone poles, which had to be replaced, along with vast expanses of cable. The majority of this damage was caused by extreme wind and diseased and damaged trees. The length and breadth of this country, there are elderly people doing their best to live independently but who rely on health-monitoring and pendant alarms. When that damage was caused, a number of elderly and vulnerable people had no monitoring in place for an extended period of time throughout the country. This is not acceptable. Our citizens' lives are at risk if they cannot call for help. I have asked questions on this matter of the Department. The Department formed the telecommunications response and resilience group, the purpose of which the Government has said is to promote resilience and high availability of Ireland’s telecommunications infrastructure and provide a co-ordinated sectoral emergency response capability. So far, no proactive steps have been taken to address the damaged or diseased trees. The Government has said that the issues of vegetation and forestry management and vulnerable persons are, per the review of Storm Éowyn published in October by the Department of housing, complex and multisectoral and will likely require an all-of-government approach. It has been a year since Storm Éowyn, so what is this proactive multidepartment approach and is connectivity for vulnerable people using a health-monitoring or pendant alarm a priority of same?

Last January, Storm Éowyn exposed serious weaknesses in how the State protected older people and sustained rural communities. In many rural areas, the loss of power and connectivity carried consequences far beyond inconvenience and unpleasantness. For elderly people living alone, often at a distance from family and neighbours, pendant alarms and home-monitoring systems are a vital safety net. Those systems exist precisely because Government cuts and neglect mean Garda and ambulance response times are too long and there is a dearth of public services in rural communities. When connectivity fails, that safety net all but disappears. What happened during Storm Éowyn and in subsequent weeks followed a well-worn pattern. Large numbers of older people remain dependent on copper landline-based alarm systems, even in areas where fibre broadband is available. These systems are more vulnerable to storm damage, harder to repair and, in most cases, operate without any mobile network backup. When overhead lines go down, the alarm systems go down with them. Alongside this, local community and voluntary organisations are carrying a growing burden. They manage alert systems, support vulnerable residents and step in during emergencies, often with limited funding and capacity. Demand continues to rise as our population ages, yet funding and supports have not kept pace. If the Government is serious about the future of rural communities, practical steps are required. Communities must be supported to move away from copper-dependent alarms to modern devices with mobile backup, and monitoring systems need to work properly with fibre where it is available. Providers in the State must also be equipped to deploy mobile-enabled alarms quickly after major storms. Rural communities are being asked to live with higher risk, weaker services and slower responses. That needs to stop and they need to be listened to. We need to see this becoming a matter of political priority and older people taken out of harm's way, this issue being recognised and action being taken.

I thank both Deputies for raising this important Topical Issue. I welcome the opportunity to outline the position on this important matter on behalf of the Minister. This Government takes the safety of vulnerable individuals in our society extremely seriously and recognises the effect of Storm Éowyn and the impact it had on power, water and telecommunications services for those individuals. The Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht is responsible for the seniors alert scheme, which provides older people with personal monitored alarms. These personal alarms operate over available telecoms networks to connect users to the monitoring services, allowing users to call for assistance. Since the scheme was launched in 2015, 159,090 participants have been approved, including more than 17,700 in 2025 alone. Participants are provided with the device for free as well as free monitoring for the first year. I am informed by the Minister, Deputy Calleary’s officials that the Department is currently reviewing all aspects of the seniors alert scheme, including the technology and services available, and plans to launch a new iteration of the scheme in 2026. The new scheme will take account of the learnings from recent weather events and will also have regard to modern technology advancements to ensure that the most reliable, robust devices currently available are procured. With regard to the broader issue of connectivity losses during emergencies and the work ongoing in the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport in relation to this issue, the Deputies should be aware that the provision of electronic communication services such as mobile phone and broadband services is a matter for telecommunications operators, which operate in a liberalised market, regulated by the Commission for Communications Regulation, ComReg. ComReg is independent in the exercise of its functions in accordance with section 11 of the Communications Regulation Act 2002. Storm Éowyn had an unprecedented impact on telecommunications networks. The impact of power loss on the sector during the storm, and delays to repair of overhead lines in some areas afterwards, had significant effects on citizens, particularly in rural areas of the north and west. The Government and the telecommunications industry recognise the challenges faced by those whose telecommunications connectivity was impacted during the storm, in particular vulnerable individuals who rely on the functioning of this technology for health monitoring and pendant alarms. Since the storm, the Department has undertaken significant engagement with a variety of stakeholders to address gaps in sectoral preparedness and response. Operators have independently assessed their preparedness and committed to a variety of network-specific measures, including reviewing the power requirements of sites, acquiring additional backup battery and generator capacity, preventative network maintenance, enhancing redundancy with backup routes to their core networks, and accelerating the use of satellites to provide additional resilience. The Department has formed the telecommunications response and resilience group, the purpose of which is to promote resilience and high availability of Ireland’s telecommunications infrastructure and to provide a co-ordinated sectoral emergency response capability. The members of the group, which include Government stakeholders, ComReg and industry, have agreed an initial work plan to include the development of measures to improve the physical and power resilience of networks, co-ordinate and communicate more effectively during emergencies, and prioritise key infrastructure to provide minimum levels of connectivity during emergencies. The focus of the group’s initial efforts is to improve the resilience of telecommunications sites, particularly mobile, as well as communication and co-ordination between response stakeholders. These broad, impactful and achievable measures will restore connectivity more quickly to all customers during emergencies, particularly those who rely on using health monitoring and pendant alarms.

There are clear, proactive actions that can be taken by the Government. The Government can review the tree-cutting capabilities each local authority has so that it can respond adequately when we have another storm event and tackle trees on public land. The Government can ensure landowners are complying with the Roads Act 1993 to remove diseased or damaged roadside trees throughout the State. The Department should, and must, engage with pendant providers to identify who the vulnerable users are and what type of network they are connected to. The expert advice we have received is that home-monitoring and health alarm customers should be migrated from copper landline-dependent devices to newer hardware devices with a mobile network backup. Home-monitoring and health alarm customers should be migrated onto more modern devices that will work with fibre to the home, FTTH, broadband where such networks are available to them. FTTH networks are significantly more resilient to storm damage than copper landline networks and are more easily repaired. We should maintain a stock of monitoring devices that work with mobile networks and can be deployed by the providers following major storms to impacted customers who are likely to experience extended fixed-line outages.

To follow on from what Deputy Byrne said, it is not good enough for the Government just to acknowledge the challenge and engage with industry on this. That is helpful, but it does not change the reality on the ground. Older people were left without monitoring during Storm Éowyn and will be again when future storms that are bound to come cause similar levels of destruction. The same vulnerabilities remain in place and that is what needs to be tackled. Copper-based alarm systems are still widely used, fragile and unsupported by mobile backup. We need to see the Government investing in that stock of mobile devices that can be deployed at short notice in those communities that are impacted. Community organisations should not be left to absorb this level of risk indefinitely. Families cannot substitute for a functioning system when a storm hits. We also need to see local authorities empowered to deal with trees that are not being cut down by landowners. Anyone in this Chamber who used to be a councillor will say that the most a local authority can really do is write letter after letter to a landowner, sometimes a landowner who is no longer receiving letters and may no longer even exist on this Earth. It is really important that local authorities be empowered to tackle these and are resourced to do that work.

The review of Storm Éowyn, published in October of last year, by the Department of housing recognised the particular challenges of providing humanitarian support to vulnerable people during emergencies, acknowledging the complex and multisectoral nature of developing effective response measures and the complexities of defining, reporting and sharing information in relation to vulnerable people. However, it did more than just acknowledge it. Some of the recommendations of the review include exploring outreach structures to ensure communication is possible with vulnerable and isolated people in the event of an emergency, where typical challenges of communication are unavailable, and that the area of vulnerable people be further developed under the auspices of the Government task force on emergency planning. The Department will continue to engage with relevant processes developed as a result of Storm Éowyn and, where appropriate, link industry with developments in State response measures, including central government and local government. The review recognises the importance of the role that An Post played during Storm Éowyn. When the impact of the storm on telecoms and data infrastructure made contacting people difficult, An Post staff delivering post provided a direct link to persons living in remote locations and checked on the welfare of older or vulnerable individuals. An Post has indicated a willingness to continue to support the co-ordinated response to a national or local emergency in this capacity. The ComReg consumer care team is also dedicated to offering help to all consumers who may experience difficulties with their mobile phones, home phones or broadband providers, including vulnerable elderly people and consumers with disabilities who experience difficulties in outages or have no service. Where a consumer has difficulty with a provider, it recommends contacting its consumer care team, which can be done via a wide variety of channels outlined on its website. An information campaign is under way now to make sure that people are aware of those channels and that it is not simply when the event happens that people are desperately seeking around to know how to make contact, particularly when that might be the very reason the person is having to make contact.