The impact and response of City and County Councils to the effects of the recent extreme weather will be investigated at today’s (18th January) meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Environment, Heritage and Local Government. Representatives from the County and City Managers Association will face questions at the meeting regarding the impact of the big freeze on road conditions and the current status regarding the supply of drinking water.

“There was an unprecedented loss of water in many regions which saw restrictions being placed in many places throughout the country. In some areas there are still limits in place which has meant a major inconvenience for households and businesses,” says committee chairman, Sean Fleming TD. “There has been some criticism of Councils and their reactions to the weather related events and suggestions that they were not sufficiently resourced to deal with the effects of the thaw. We intend to establish the current situation regarding water supply and consider the effectiveness of the Councils’ response.”

The Committee will also scrutinise the performance of the local authorities with regard to keeping roads passable during the cold snap. It will also be asking them if enough was done to keep roads open as well as finding out how local authorities are progressing with repairing roads damaged by the weather.

The Government has announced an additional €15 million in contingency funding for local authorities to cover exceptional costs associated with the extreme weather currently being experienced.

The cold weather is already breaking records. It has been almost forty years since Ireland has had snow and ice so early in the Winter and it is unusual for the cold weather to persist so intensly without respite.

“We do recognise that even with the best pre-planning, the intensity and duration of the weather is stretching the financial resources of local authorities in their response measures,” says John Gormley, TD, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. “I am pleased to be able to say that I will make €15m available from within my Vote for those local authorities most in need of supplementary funding, as a contribution to their exceptional costs, over and above the costs they would ordinarily be expected to meet in the context of yearly Winter weather demands.”