Irish Examiner view: Storm Éowyn highlights Ireland's need to prioritise infrastructure
A tree fell on the roof of the home of Angela Ducey at Killavullen, Co Cork during Storm Éowyn. A case could be made for devoting part of Ireland's Apple tax windfall to investment in infrastructure. Picture: Larry Cummins
One week after Storm Éowyn came through the country, the destruction it wrought is still a live issue.
Thousands of people are still without electricity and it may be the middle of next week before all are reconnected, while at least one fatality was attributed directly to the storm.
When ESB chiefs are describing the damage as “really incredible” and noting that significant investment in the electricity network is needed to make sure such widescale outages do not happen again, then we surely must acknowledge that we are in a new and more challenging era of extreme weather.
This impression is only strengthened by the latest meeting of the National Emergency Co-ordination Group, which dealt with preparations for extreme weather events, to increase the country’s resilience, as well as the current crisis.
In terms of timing, the launch this week of Climate Change, Security, and Defence — a Defence Forces report written in collaboration with University College Cork — could hardly be more opportune.
The report points out that climate change is a potential threat to Ireland’s marine infrastructure, shipping, and offshore energy installations.
It also identifies less obvious results of climate change, such as far-right opposition to migration resulting from climate change, and to measures such as taxes on fossil fuels and car restrictions.
It is difficult to argue against the points made by the Defence Forces here. We need only see the pressure the Irish economy came under due to a single weather event coming up to Christmas, when Storm Darragh forced Holyhead port to close, for evidence supporting the thrust of this report.
Is there a case for deploying some of the much-discussed Apple tax windfall in future-proofing our infrastructure?
Granted, almost every week it seems that some sector will make a case for its slice of the billions on hand from the tech giant, and some are more persuasive than others. However, transport links, power supplies, and internet connectivity are so fundamental to modern society that they must surely be prioritised.
If nothing else, Storm Éowyn has taught us that.
While President Michael D Higgins’s comments on Sunday continue to cause fallout worldwide, the fighting and hostage exchanges between Hamas and Israel continue.
Hamas freed eight hostages yesterday, with accompanying chaotic and frightening parades through the streets, while Israel released another 110 Palestinian prisoners.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have also returned to northern Gaza over the past three days, though much of that area has been destroyed by 15 months of brutal Israeli assaults with a near-apocalyptic landscape awaiting those now returning to their homes.
One might be forgiven for assuming that Israeli hostility is now mostly a matter of criticising those who have criticised its cruelty in Gaza, such as the wholly unsurprising accusations from Israel that President Higgins was “politicising” a recent Holocaust commemoration event in Dublin.
This version of events has also taken hold in the British press, with a editorial there lambasting Irish foreign and economic policy, while also criticising Irish leaders for “championing the underdog”.
It suggested, with no hint of irony, that Ireland needed a president with “imagination, dignity, and sensitivity”, and that “Higgins would do well to study the careful phrasing and choreography surrounding [Britain’s King Charles’] visit to Krakow and Auschwitz”.
The editorial failed to mention the ongoing bloodshed in the Middle East, including in southern Lebanon where Israeli forces were due to withdraw but where, on Sunday, its army shot and killed at least 24 people — including six women — and injured 134 others, with 14 women and 12 children among the latter figure.
The next day, Israeli forces shot and killed at least two people and wounded 17 more.
Since then, the US and Lebanon have announced that the deadline to meet the ceasefire’s terms had been extended to February 18.
This development has a particular relevance to Ireland, as our Defence Forces have served with distinction as part of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) peacekeeping force for decades. When Israel opened fire on UN positions last October, Irish troops escaped injury — but soldiers from other nations were injured by Israeli gunfire.
President Higgins’s comments have formed the basis for many column inches around the world this week, though the deaths in Lebanon appear to be less noteworthy in some parts. Perhaps, when it comes to the barbarism on display, words have failed them.
Thomas Barr announced his retirement from competitive athletics this week after a long career at the peak of world sport. That is no exaggeration.
Barr was one of Ireland’s most successful athletes of all time, having won a historic bronze medal in the 400m hurdles at the 2018 European Athletics Championships. In doing so, he became the first Irish male sprinter to win an outdoor European medal in the 84-year history of the event.
Barr also represented Ireland at the Rio, Tokyo, and Paris Olympics. Just last year, he was a key member of the Irish mixed 4x400m relay teams which claimed bronze and gold medals at the World Relays and European Championships respectively.
It is not casting aspersions on any other sport and discipline to say that anyone who competes in athletics in three different Olympic Games has reached a level of accomplishment and achievement beyond the ken of most mortals.
The Waterford native never forgot his roots — “Dunmore East is my favourite place in the world,” he told this newspaper some years ago — while also doing justice to the green singlet in competition with the best in the world.
A happy retirement to one of our best.
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