Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 29 September 2026
486. Deputy Jennifer Whitmore asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the assessments undertaken of critical water infrastructure vulnerabilities that were identified during Storm Éowyn; and the actions taken in response. [68836/26]
Amharc ar fhreagraFollowing Storm Éowyn I met with Uisce Éireann to establish what measures it proposed to take strengthen the resilience of Ireland's water and wastewater services against severe weather events.
Uisce Éireann is now implementing a multi-year programme to strengthen the resilience of Ireland's water and wastewater services against severe weather, prolonged power outages, supply chain disruption, infrastructure failure and other nationally significant emergencies.
The programme is designed to increase Uisce Éireann’s ability to maintain essential services during prolonged disruption, while supporting compliance with emerging national and European resilience expectations. Maintaining continuity of safe drinking water and wastewater services requires enhanced preparedness, strengthened contingency capability and targeted investment across critical resilience areas at the same time as recognising that there are key dependencies that need to be managed.
Significant progress has been made in establishing foundational resilience capabilities, including the addition of over 100 mobile generations along with 86 sites being made generator ready in 2025 with a further c.60 sites planned for 2026. This is in addition to the existing 300 locations nationwide that are generator ready.
Other progress includes alternative water supply arrangements, emergency response governance, incident coordination processes and communications resilience initiatives. Further work is underway to embed this capability through a phased resilience programme which will support future prolonged and widespread disruption scenarios.
