Electricity blackout risk
Deputy Durkan warned of possible blackouts and asked that preparations be made. The Minister said the relevant bodies were working together to protect supply and that the Minister for the Environment was confident there would be no unforeseen outages.
I wish to raise the issue of the unwelcome possibility of electricity blackouts in the next six months or so. I would ask the Minister if provision can be made to ensure that we will be sufficiently prepared for such eventualities and that every effort is being made to ensure that these unwelcome prospects do not occur.
Comment on this
I thank the Ceann Comhairle, and thank Deputy Durkan for raising the issue. As I stated a moment ago, the relevant bodies here are all working together - the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, EirGrid and the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. They have taken certain steps to ensure continuity of supply. The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, has said he is confident that there will not be any unforeseen outages.
As the Deputy will be aware, there have been certain early warnings issued over the course of the year but on no occasion was power supply interrupted for any customer. It is important to put that on the record.