Member's statement: Storm Éowyn: Building Rural Resilience

Member's statement by Mr Colm Gildernew on 28 January 2025.

MLA

Mr Colm Gildernew

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

28 January 2025

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Storm Éowyn: Building Rural Resilience

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4763539

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I want to address some of the issues that continue to flow from storm Éowyn. The key issue that I want to focus on this morning is that the term "unprecedented" has been used about the storm, and the storm itself certainly was unprecedented. However, the impact of power cuts and water disruption on rural areas is far from unprecedented; it is all too precedented. My issue is that we do not seem to be learning the lessons, even the basics, around communication and how we can do better in such situations. My area, the Brantry in south Tyrone, has been without electric for significant periods three times over the past eight weeks. Yet, every time that those situations arise, we have, at times, trouble getting through on phone lines and trouble getting action. All the time, we have not only people who need life-saving medical equipment, which has been flagged as a significant issue, but huge numbers of others who have, for example, temperature-regulated medicines, which becomes an issue after several days. Families who have children with autism experience huge disruption. We do not seem to have the correct identification and support process in place in advance of such events. Those needs can be predicted and worked on. I welcome and acknowledge NIE's efforts over the weekend to communicate with us at times, and I acknowledge that we cannot build a perfect system. However, it has to be said that it is no accident that most of the power cuts that are still ongoing — my electricity went off again this morning — are west of the Bann. They are west of the Bann as the result of underinvestment. While we cannot build a perfect system, surely, we can, over time and with proper planning, start to improve the system that we have to make it more robust. That has to be looked at realistically. Given that we are told that not all needs can be met this time, we have to look at the alternatives. I believe that they lie in rural communities particularly. We have small rural groups and rural halls that are more than willing to help in their communities in times of need.

Those groups' facilities are also without power, however, so we are seeing a situation in which people are being asked to travel to get support. Although the support in Dungannon leisure centre is welcome, people in Fivemiletown are 15 or 20 miles from there. We need to instil resilience in local communities, including through a scheme that sees small rural halls being equipped with emergency generators, water to some degree, washing facilities and cooking facilities. Doing that would allow those small communities to become more resilient, because do not forget that, at the same time, we are also telling people not to travel. There is therefore much more that can be done. Following Friday's storm, we need to act immediately and make changes for the next time.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:52 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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