Rose Conway-Walsh criticises storm response, urges community plans
Rose Conway-Walsh criticised the government's lack of urgency in responding to the storm and called for a proper coordinated national plan and clearer roles in the aftermath. She noted warnings were issued days in advance, said the storm occurred on 21 January, and argued the army should have been brought in to assist ESB workers and clear fallen trees.
Government response criticised
Rose Conway-Walsh described the overall government response as lacking urgency and coordination. She said national-level coordination did not "seep down" through to local response, leaving communities without an effective, timely plan for what to do and who is responsible.
Warnings and timing
She emphasised that warnings of the storm's ferocity were sent days in advance and questioned the claim that meetings only began after the event. The speech points to a need for clear timelines and a predefined action plan for use when storms occur.
Community resilience highlighted
Rose Conway-Walsh praised how communities rallied during the crisis, citing strong local coordination and mutual support. She referenced her visit to the Balhad dream and examples where rural social scheme supports, solidarity payments and grants were used to deliver food and assistance to remote households.
Proposed local support measures
She proposed institutionalising community resilience by resourcing local focal points - for example providing generators to GA clubs and soccer clubs and ensuring strategic placement of vans and facilities for showering, phone charging and contact. The aim is a targeted support programme through community rural affairs to enable accessible focal hubs in emergencies.
Next steps and parliamentary follow-up
Rose Conway-Walsh said the issue will be discussed in fuller detail during private members' time and urged development of a coordinated plan for the next storm. She warned that authorities must "do much, much better the next time, because there will be the next time," and pressed for concrete changes to planning and resourcing.
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The lack of urgency in the government's response to the storm was quite bizarre. Now, the storm was on the 21st of January, and you're saying you met on the 22nd, but warnings of that, and maybe you can correct that, warnings of the ferocity of the storm were sent out days in advance, yet there was no effective coordinated plan in the aftermath. I think the problem was, in whatever coordination there was at a national level, it didn't seep down through. What we need to make absolutely certain is, we will be discussing this in fuller detail in our private member's time tonight, but that we have a plan going forward, and that it's a proper coordinated plan as to who does what and when they do it, and what the outcome of that is. People are still absolutely perplexed that the army wasn't brought in, particularly to clear the trees and to clear the way of the workers from the ESB, so we need to do much, much better the next time, because there will be the next time. One interesting positive outcome of the storm, if one could even say that, is the degree to which communities rallied, and there was a very strong community resilience in Ireland. We now need to institutionalise that a bit more, and by that I mean we need to resource communities. Deputy Daly referred to my visit to the Balhad dream, there was a tremendous community focal point there, and they had a tremendous coordination, and they used all the various schemes from the rural social scheme to the solidarity payment, the grant scheme, and they used that through the purchase of vans or the one scheme, the rural social workers, to get food to people living in remote areas. So we need, and then the GA clubs and the soccer clubs, they need to be provided, I think, with generators. We need to do that in a programme the way we can't do to everybody, but if there's an identifiable focal point in any given community, some of them didn't have generators, and by the grace of God they got back power quickly so they could then make the facility available to the public. So I think we need to just give, develop a support scheme, probably to a community rural affairs that would enable us to strategically place essential sort of provisions for those communities which would enable there to be a focal hope that people could come to for showering, for charging their phones, for contact and so on like that. So that's something I'm very keen to see developed.
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