Minister Browne welcomes measures taken by Uisce Éireann following Storm Éowyn
- Published on: 18 February 2025
- Last updated on: 12 April 2025
James Browne, Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, today (18 February 2025) announced new measures to be taken by Uisce Éireann to enhance the water and wastewater network resilience following Storm Éowyn. The Minister met with representatives from Uisce Éireann last week to discuss the response to Storm Éowyn and the impact on customers.
In anticipation of Storm Éowyn, Uisce Éireann activated its dedicated crisis and risk management structures to provide an agile response to events impacting on service delivery in order to minimise customer impact and to protect public health. While the roll-out of its crisis response was effective and ensured, for example, that water service was maintained for almost 400,000 customers through back-up generation, the unprecedented nature of the power outages following Storm Éowyn meant that at the peak of the storm 130,000 customers were without water.
Uisce Éireann is undertaking a review of the lessons learned from Storm Éowyn and the improvements that are necessary to improve its crisis response capability which will be completed by end of February. The Minister has requested a number of actions be taken, in advance of the review being completed, now that the initial storm response has been completed. These measures include:
- Uisce Éireann will increase its stock of mobile generators with an additional 100 generators to be purchased immediately;
- Uisce Éireann will accelerate its programme to make sites “generator ready”. To date this programme has primarily focused on treatment plants. Following Storm Éowyn the programme will be expanded to include reservoirs and pumping stations with an addition 100 sites to be made “generator ready” in 2025 with a further 500 sites to be added through 2026 and 2027
- due to communications issues experienced during the storm, Uisce Éireann will accelerate discussions currently underway with telecommunications providers regarding satellite connectivity for mobile phones
Speaking about these measures, Minister Browne said:
"These storms are becoming more regular and more destructive and there is a need to take immediate action to ensure that we increase the resilience of the water and wastewater network to this type of event. I met with representatives from Uisce Éireann to discuss the Storm Éowyn response and the impact on customers. A number of actions emerged from these discussions and I have outlined these actions in a memo to Government, which has been considered today.
“Uisce Éireann has demonstrated the value of a national utility approach in achieving effective management of major water services emergencies with its capability enhanced with the experience gained from, successive weather and other events. Following Storm Éowyn at the peak 130,000 customers were without water and 11 precautionary Boil Water Notices were put in place impacting c11,500 customers. All of these have now been lifted and connections restored.”
The CEO of Uisce Éireann, Niall Gleeson, commented:
“Uisce Éireann appreciates the support of Minister Browne regarding our response to Storm Éowyn and looks forward to working with him and his team in the future. We met with Minister Browne last week and provided a comprehensive update on the extensive efforts of our staff to manage the impact of Storm Éowyn on communities throughout Ireland – and how we focussed on minimising customer impact and protecting public health to the greatest extent possible.”
Notes
Uisce Éireann (Uisce Éireann) was established in 2014 as the national utility for water services. It provides services on a nationwide basis and serves 85% of the population with drinking water and about 70% with waste water services. It is a large and complex organisation spending about €2 billion per annum on operational and capital expenditure, employing about 3,500 people, operating some 1,800 Water and Wastewater Treatment Plants, 4,100 pumping stations, 2,400 abstraction points and reservoirs and maintaining c90,000km of pipelines.
It is the largest consumer of energy in the State and depends heavily on electricity to maintain service. It is to be noted however that loss of power does not result in an immediate loss of water service for customers. Customer storage and reservoirs that feed by gravity insulate customers from any loss of water service during a short duration power outage of up to 24 hours and longer for many customers. Uisce Éireann also has back-up generation capacity at the major plants and mobile generation capacity that can be deployed on a priority basis. The quantum of such capacity is based on risk analysis.
On 22 January 2025, Storm Éowyn passed over Ireland under a National Red Warning, with Met Éireann guiding that the storm’s impact would be similar to, or stronger than, Storm Ophelia, with record high winds impacting all regions. Extreme conditions resulted in widespread power and telecommunications outages across the Country, particularly in the West and North West. Uisce Éireann’s infrastructure was impacted nationally, with Water and Wastewater treatment capacity and communications lost during outage periods. In total, 286 Water Treatment Plants (WTPs) and 293 Wastewater Treatment Plants (WWTPs) were impacted.
At the peak of the storm c.51,000 premises (130,000 Customers) were without water. Through pre-emptive deployment of backup generators, the supply to c.146,000 premises (395,000 customers) was maintained with onsite generation. As soon as the Red Warning was lifted, Uisce Éireann, Local Authority and Contractor crews, which were on standby across the country, were mobilised.
Uisce Éireann’s National Operations Management Centre (NOMC) worked 24/7 throughout the event analysing alarms centrally, with all outages and issues reported to a single incident management hub. These were dispatched nationally across Uisce Éireann’s workflow management system to all available Uisce Éireann, Local Authority and contractor crews, on a prioritised basis.
As power outages were having the greatest impacts, established channels and protocols in place with ESB Networks were used to identify priority locations for power restoration. Uisce Éireann also identified locations which would not be reconnected for some time and were not suited to the installation of generators, which would therefore require the provision of alternative water supplies, including bottled water, bulk containers and tankers.