National Emergency Co-ordination Group meets as clean-up continues following Storm Éowyn

The National Emergency Co-ordination Group (NECG) met today (Saturday) as the nationwide clean-up continues following Storm Éowyn. The Chair of the NECG had briefed the Taoiseach Micheál Martin earlier this morning and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, James Browne, was in attendance at the NECG meeting.

The NECG is continuing its work to coordinate and support efforts to restore power, water, telecommunications and other services to homes, farms and businesses.

With unprecedented power outages due to Storm Éowyn, ESB Networks is mobilising all available resources to restore connections as soon as possible. Already 308,000 power connections have been restored, and intensive work will continue over the weekend.

It is expected that full restoration will take more than a week in the worst impacted areas. Estimated restoration times (ERTs) will be provided as network faults are assessed and these will be available to view at www.PowerCheck.ie.

Local authorities across the country have made significant progress removing debris and clearing roads, but the public are reminded to be vigilant as fallen trees or other debris may remain in some areas. Any obstructions should be reported to the local authority or Gardaí, or to the ESB in the case of fallen or damaged wires.

The public are reminded that storm clean-up should be left to the emergency services and professional operators who have the necessary competence, training and equipment to undertake the work safely.

Keith Leonard, Chair of the NECG said: “Although the recovery stage is now well underway, the damage caused by Storm Éowyn will still present hazards on our roads, so I’m asking drivers to continue taking extra care this weekend. In particular, please heed the advice from the ESB – never approach fallen power lines and report such cases to ESB Emergency Services. Major clean-up and road clearance operations should also be left to the emergency services and professional operators who are trained to do such work safely.

“The NECG continues to focus on co-ordinating efforts to restore power, water, telecommunications and other services to the many homes, farms and businesses affected by this storm. A whole of Government effort is underway to ensure we get the right resources to the right places and get the country back to normal as soon as possible, with the Defence Forces and many state agencies, including the National Parks and Wildlife Service and Coillte, providing manpower, resources and assistance to clear obstructions and to help ESB Networks to restore connection to those still without power. There will continue to be significant impacts to services across all sectors in the coming days due the severity of the impact to the power distribution network, but every effort is being made to restore power and services as fast as humanly possible.”

The NECG Infrastructure Sub-Group will meet this afternoon with a focus on coordinating the ongoing efforts to restore power and other services.

The full NECG will meet again tomorrow, and work will continue throughout the day to coordinate the response and recovery.

For more details and live updates visit HERE.