Debate contribution: Storm Resilience and Infrastructure Preparedness

Debate contribution by Mr Andrew McMurray on 20 October 2025.

MLA

Mr Andrew McMurray

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

20 October 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Storm Resilience and Infrastructure Preparedness

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5188938

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank Mr Butler for his remarks and the sentiments about Newcastle at the start of them. I also thank Cathy Mason. I reiterate that there was a yellow rain warning: the consequences of an amber or, indeed, red rain warning do not bear thinking about. Certainly, I agree with the general intent of the motion. There is a:

"need for clearer contingency planning, stronger leadership, and better co-ordination between Departments and agencies".

The emergency response systems and communication on the ground can certainly be strengthened as well, and that must include putting in place a community emergency resilience network that can work with agencies to deliver local support during future storms. Thinking back to storm Éowyn, some of the community resilience that was on display in my constituency involved GAA halls, Orange halls, church halls and community halls coming together to create space. Mr Butler raised some points about medical issues, and those were experienced in my area. The County Down Rural Community Network is, I am sure, well known to everybody — it is certainly well known in south Down — and has a network in place that can put together responses. There are simple things that can be done, like putting adaptors on the outside of fuse boxes in houses to enable portable generators to be linked up. That is one of the ideas that could be adopted, and it would be really good if it was. We need to strengthen our infrastructure through better maintenance and new technologies to make it more resilient to extreme weather events. In our part of the world, those events tend to involve high winds and heavy rain.

Given the rain that we saw over the past weekend, it would be good to see the flood forecasting service developed, enacted and put forward, because the flooding events are stark.

I am not sure that we can fully avoid every road closure, public transport disruption and power cut in the future, but we have to accept that we are seeing climate change play out exactly as we predicted, with massive storms causing extensive damage.

Yes, certainly.

The Member makes an interesting point, and we have to accept that the way in which our tree strategy is enacted will play a big part in tackling climate change, not least with mixed woodland areas and suchlike, to prevent some of the rainfall hitting the infrastructure. Coming back to the point, it is simple when you think about it, really. We are seeing warmer seas. Warmer things create more energy. That is creating more energy in our weather systems, which means that we see the weather events that are happening. If one or two days' rain falls in a matter of hours, we cannot expect our infrastructure to cope, but those weather systems are becoming more the norm. During storm Éowyn, there were over 2,300 reported obstructions on the road network, including hundreds on our motorways. Train lines suffered significant damage, substantial resources were poured into the clean-up and people worked extremely hard around the clock to remove the trees. Even so, it took a long time simply due to the sheer extent of the devastation. That is how climate change differs from weather. That is why climate change really is the problem. Short of removing all trees that are growing in the vicinity of infrastructure, which Mr Butler referred to, little can be done to prevent massive storms that result from climate change having an impact on people's lives. We need to step up our efforts to combat climate change. The AERA Minister is doing what he can, and so must his colleagues. We must ensure that climate change is a chief consideration when planning new infrastructure. We are already obliged to do so by law, and courts are enforcing that requirement, as we have seen. Mr Brett is not here, but I am concerned about the amendment. It is trying to twist and turn the motion into an attack on our renewable energy targets, and there is an insinuation about their impact on energy security. The truth is that the 80 by 30 target is nothing short of essential to our energy security. There is no cliff edge. Nothing will be switched off before sufficient renewable alternatives are in place, even in the unfortunate case that we miss the 2030 target. We can always put more units back on if need be. We are currently at the mercy of international gas markets, which comes with significant geopolitical risks. We saw some of that play out in the price spikes after the invasion of Ukraine. Our dependency on fossil fuels that are not generated locally also means that our energy consumption largely benefits other countries when offshore renewables could bring an economic bonanza to our economy around ports such as Warrenpoint, Ardglass and Kilkeel, which are in my constituency of South Down. I want to see my area not only driving the green economy but providing its own energy security, with the financial and energy perseverance that comes with it. The response should not be to slow down renewable deployment but to increase it, so that we have a more diverse portfolio that is not dependent on mostly old gas plants. The sooner we are energy-independent, the sooner we will become energy-secure.

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

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:35 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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