{"id":94154,"date":"2025-09-30T06:29:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T06:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/94154\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T06:29:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T06:29:06","slug":"ireland-unprepared-for-another-storm-eowyn-as-season-of-extreme-weather-looms-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/94154\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland unprepared for another Storm \u00c9owyn as season of extreme weather looms \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plans to scale up the response to extreme weather events such as Storm \u00c9owyn<\/a> have not been finalised even as a new storm season approaches. <\/p>\n

The Climate Change Advisory Council<\/a> (CCAC) has criticised the delay, saying last January\u2019s storm and its immediate predecessor, Storm Darragh, exposed \u201csignificant shortcomings\u201d in how State agencies and services managed the widespread impacts. <\/p>\n

It expressed disappointment that an all-of-Government review of the Storm \u00c9owyn response was overdue and said preparations were needed urgently before another storm of that magnitude hits Ireland. <\/p>\n

The CCAC\u2019s comments come in its annual review of Ireland\u2019s climate adaptation capacity. <\/p>\n

It examines how prepared the country is to deal with the now-unpreventable impacts of climate change<\/a>, such as increasingly severe storms, more intense flooding and loss of coastal land. <\/p>\n

Prof Peter Thorne, chair of the CCAC\u2019s adaptation committee, said not enough \u201ctangible action\u201d was being taken. <\/p>\n

\u201cWith extreme weather events continuing to increase in both magnitude and frequency, communities throughout Ireland must be better protected from their devastating impacts,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese storms have exposed our vulnerability and the critical shortcomings in our preparedness and response systems.\u201d <\/p>\n

Storm \u00c9owyn\u2019s record-breaking winds caused extensive damage that left 768,000 properties without electricity, 200,000 without water and 1 million without phone or broadband. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Storm \u00c9owyn costs ESB \u20ac100m in network repairsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The CCAC urged immediate action to ensure readiness for a repeat event. <\/p>\n

This included establishing emergency response hubs \u2013 regional facilities pre-stocked with essential equipment and humanitarian supplies to avoid a scramble to find items such as generators and bottled water after an event. <\/p>\n

A permanent, well-funded extreme weather assistance scheme for households and small businesses is recommended instead of the ad hoc arrangements used to date. <\/p>\n

The CCAC also said next week\u2019s budget must increase the \u201cgrossly inadequate\u201d climate funding for local authorities so they can create permanent positions for climate action teams and improve local adaptation planning. <\/p>\n

Minister for Housing James Browne announced the review of the response to Storm \u00c9owyn days after it passed, with initial indications that it would be completed by the summer. <\/p>\n

Earlier this month, he said it was anticipated that the review findings would be available \u201cshortly\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0After Storm \u00c9owyn, can Ireland\u2019s electricity, water and phone networks cope with further extreme weather?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The CCAC report also comments on the wider challenges of climate change adaptation and is critical of the \u201csilo\u201d approach of Government departments and agencies. <\/p>\n

It says while each department has its own adaptation plan, policies lack specifics and results are not measurable. <\/p>\n

The National Coastal Change Management Strategy was published two years ago and agreed on three so-called pathfinder projects to investigate what protection measures were feasible, but there is \u201cno clear timeline for delivery\u201d of this work. <\/p>\n

Critical infrastructure is not sufficiently resilient and there is a shortage of skilled repair staff, it said. <\/p>\n

Better localised early warning systems to protect lives and property at town and village level are also urged. <\/p>\n

The report also said the insurance industry should incentivise climate-smart decisions such as moving critical equipment to higher floors and supporting \u201cbuild back better\u201d approaches that made properties more resilient to the next extreme weather event. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plans to scale up the response to extreme weather events such as Storm \u00c9owyn have not been finalised…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":94155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,442,60909,18,13,14,10916,6,19,3912,17,4770,11,12,15,16,5,960,7,8,1102],"class_list":{"0":"post-94154","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-climate-change","11":"tag-climate-change-advisory-council","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-floods","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-insurance","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-james-browne","21":"tag-latest-news","22":"tag-latestnews","23":"tag-main-news","24":"tag-mainnews","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-storm-eowyn","27":"tag-top-stories","28":"tag-topstories","29":"tag-weather-events"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}