Irish public events should be cancelled for weather warnings - Government report

A review by the government on the effects of Storm Éowyn has recommended that public events should be cancelled if an orange weather warning is forecast. 

The report - commissioned by the Department of Housing and Government - also recommended: "All event organisers should have arrangements in place to monitor wind speeds at the site of an outdoor event."

Speaking on Newstalk, Alan O’Reilly of Carlow Weather cautioned that “warning fatigue” is taking place amongst the public due to the regular occurence of weather warnings. 

The weather expert said: “We have seen time and time again orange warnings for Cork where one part of the county has a real serious weather event, and the other part has nothing pretty much.”

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The man recommended that granular warnings for smaller locales should be given by Met Éireann - similar to the UK Met Office. 

Key findings from the government report are as follows: “At its peak, approximately 768,000 customers lost electricity supply during Storm Éowyn. The scale of damage to the network was unprecedented and required extensive restoration efforts.” 

“Almost 70% of customers had their power restored within the first 72 hours; with almost 90% of customers regaining supply, one week after the storm crossed the country. All customers were restored by 11 February; 18 days after the storm crossed the country.”

The report admitted that: “Storm Éowyn exposed vulnerabilities and highlighted interdependencies, in various areas including the electricity network, water service infrastructure, and communications networks.”

It was also stated that the storm was the worst that the ESB network has ever dealt with.