Debate contribution: Storm Éowyn: Executive Response

Debate contribution by Mrs Emma Little-Pengelly on 27 January 2025.

MLA

Mrs Emma Little-Pengelly

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

27 January 2025

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Ministerial Statement

Heading

Storm Éowyn: Executive Response

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4758729

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the Member for her important question. I will, absolutely. The easiest electricity connections to restore are those in urban areas. Those are prioritised due to the number of affected "customers", as NIE would describe them, or households that they serve. There will be a number of homes, particularly in rural areas, that will be very difficult to get to to fix their connection. We have been made aware of that. Those are the people who are most likely to have their power restored towards the end of the time frame. This Friday will mark seven days from the beginning of last Friday's storm, and it looks as though those who will not be reconnected until after that will be in the more rural and isolated areas. Those people will probably also be the most vulnerable, so we need to ensure that we use all the mechanisms and local information available to target that support, particularly for people who are isolated, older and do not have a network of family and friends to rely on. We have been urging neighbours and family members to reach out to those older and more vulnerable people. We must use our network of local community organisations and local council support teams to provide warm and safe spaces that provide food, hot showers and electricity to charge devices etc. That will be critical as we move beyond day 4.

I thank the Member for his question. We have been very clear in putting across a message on safety with generators, particularly through the Health and Safety Executive. There are people using generators, and there is a danger associated with that if they are not used correctly. We advise everyone who is using a generator to make sure that they look up the advice that is available online from the Health and Safety Executive. It requires some expertise to get the generators to the right place and set them up correctly. We have worked with NIE on that through COBRA and the UK Government. The UK Government can supply us with generators, and we understand that 30 additional generators will arrive today from Great Britain. That will be a help, but, from our discussions with NIE, it is clear that it wants to prioritise reconnections and deploy the engineers to do that. That means that we will need to source engineer hours elsewhere in order to support the safe installation of the generators. We tasked the head of the Civil Service with that this morning.

A COBRA 'O' meeting — an officials-level, UK-wide meeting — was scheduled for 11.00 am. We asked her to add to our ask and feed that request into the process to see whether we can get additional people who are able to support the roll-out of generators. That will be critical, particularly for the water issue but also in getting schools reopened and getting help and support to people.

I thank the Member for his question. Many thousands of people will be keen to hear from NIE. We have made the proposal to NIE that it considers making a goodwill payment. I know that there had been talk of compensation, but, of course, there is a provision that energy companies do not have a legal requirement to pay out for something on this scale. That may or may not be the case when this is looked at. The Member will understand that, over the weekend, our focus was very much on working with NIE, NI Water and other agencies to get reconnections and support for people. As we have moved through that, the issue of financial support has, of course, come up. Many people have lost the contents of their fridge or freezer, for example. Earlier, I made the point that this is possibly the worst week of the year for financial stress on families — few people have many funds left in the last week of January — so we know that there is a huge burden on families who are having to eat out, for example, because they cannot cook a meal at home. We believe that it is the right thing for NIE Networks to step up and give a goodwill payment to support the people throughout Northern Ireland who have been suffering hardship without electricity. We know that it can do that. It is important that we talk to the Utility Regulator, but our understanding is that NIE can do that. Indeed, the Scottish energy companies have stepped up in Scotland. As a starter, we should look at the provision that they are giving to their customers — customers who have been impacted on by the same storm — and asking NIE Networks to step up, do the same and give that goodwill payment.

798 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:46 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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