ESB reps face Leitrim councillors regarding 'lack of communication' during storm

Representatives from ESB attended a meeting in Ballinamore, Leitrim, this week where they were met with questions from local councillors regarding 

Speaking to the Leitrim Observer after the meeting, Cllr Paddy O'Rourke said that "some councillors expressed disappointment with the level of communication available to public representatives in January while acknowledging that the ESB were under. In fairness to the ESB, they did explain why things had to be done in a certain way."

He added: "Obviously the overriding issue in all of this is the safety of manpower and that were solutions are applied because you don't know where power surges occur or where people have generators that feed back to the system."

He noted that one councillor raised the issue of the case of a vulnerable person not receiving any communication before or after the storm. "She was disappointed about that which was understandable. What I mean by a vulnerable person is someone is registered with the ESB as a 'vulnerable client' as in the are depended on electricity for medical devices in their home."

READ MORE: Leitrim school is facing 'intolerable conditions', says local Senator

He said he was aware of a situation where an individual had to move from their home and "live with in-laws who had power in their region." 

He said that he felt that the ESB has not invested enough in the region over the years and put this to the ESB representatives at the meeting. "From speaking with people who work with the ESB are were deployed from other districts, the network is frail and threadbare and didn't seem that it had received it's share of the necessary routine maintenance down through the years but the ESB said that this was not the case and there was only a small percentage of poles that were rotten. But my experience from going around the country last year was very different; I saw many poles that had broken 12ft from the top and they rotten down the centre. That should not have been allowed to happen and those poles should be replaced."

Cllr O'Rourke said that it was a learning exercise for both parties. "The ESB delegation suggested they would speak to individual members of the council about isolated cases after the meeting."