I commenced Leaders' Questions this morning by expressing our good wishes to those involved in the response to Storm Ali. However, conditions seem to be worsening and the level of preparedness does not seem to be as effective as it was in the case of similar storms in the past. The Minister's Department has just announced that 11 of its offices have closed, while a considerable number of trees are down and there are difficulties with transmitters. Did the emergency co-ordination committee meet in advance of this storm? The committee did superb work last winter. I ask the Government to ensure the level of relative unpreparedness for this storm will not be repeated this winter.

I rarely disagree with the Deputy, but I must do so this morning. There was adequate planning to ensure a level of preparedness for this morning's storm. The national director for fire and emergency management has been monitoring the situation which is evolving and met daily with Met Éireann in the past week. I closed offices to protect the safety of departmental staff and the clients and customers who use the offices and ensure such persons would not have to go outside unnecessarily. The National Ploughing Championships were cancelled to protect the tens of thousands of expected attendees who would have exposed themselves to an orange or yellow warning event. Preparations have been made. Weather warnings have been issued in recent days. The security forces, local authority staff and ESB personnel are out in numbers this morning, looking after the 140,000 people who are without electricity and clearing the roads of branches and trees damaged overnight. We can only do what we are doing, which is responding to something for which we prepared in recent days. The yellow and orange warnings will remain in place until this evening.