The first power generators arrived by sea from Denmark, another came from Luxembourg and a dozen were flown in to Dublin Airport from Poland on a Romanian military aircraft.
Storm Éowyn had done huge damage, cutting off power to more than 760,000 homes and businesses. In response to the damage, the Government triggered – for the first time due to a storm – an emergency request for EU assistance.
The EU’s “civil protection mechanism” had previously funnelled help to Spain, Poland and Hungary, following separate devastating floods last year, but also further afield to Syria and Turkey, in response to a big earthquake there two years ago.
The alert from Ireland came in to an emergency EU co-ordination centre on the Saturday after the storm. The Government asked other EU states to lend spare power generators. Denmark was the first to come back. Its offer of four generators was accepted within 30 minutes.
Due to the need to get supplies to Ireland quickly, the European Commission provided 12 generators from the EU executive’s own stockpiles. The generators were in Poland, so a Romanian military plane was scrambled to fly them to Dublin.
The generators were deployed to the west of the country, where they were used to reopen schools and help Uisce Éireann restore water supplies.
European commissioner for crisis management Hadja Lahbib says the EU responded “immediately” to Ireland’s request for assistance. “This is what I call EU solidarity at its best,” she said on Thursday.
Ciaran Mullooly, the Independent Ireland MEP from Midlands North West, was critical that more was not done ahead of time. He said the Government should have requested spare generators from the EU before the storm hit, as soon as officials knew the likely damage Storm Éowyn would bring.
However, Ms Lahbib said the EU “can’t provide generators before they are needed”. Following the storm the request for help from Ireland was immediate, she said. “And our response was immediate as well.”
A Department of Housing spokesman said officials had to first carry out a damage assessment before they could ask for help from other EU states.
“It is essential that a needs assessment be carried out to ensure appropriate and detailed requests can be made for limited shared resources and to ensure that the necessary logistics and transport can be actioned effectively,” the spokesman said.
There was a delay of a day as EU officials waited for details from Ireland about the types of generators needed.
Speaking during a visit to the EU’s emergency co-ordination centre, Ireland’s European commissioner Michael McGrath said Storm Éowyn broke meteorological records, with wind speeds never seen before.
“This was an unprecedented storm and it resulted in unprecedented damage for homes, farms, businesses, communities across the country”, he said.
[ The Irish Times view on Storm Éowyn: a sign of things to come ]
Mr McGrath said he expected a review would be undertaken into Ireland’s response to the storm, including how it had engaged with the EU support network.
“It was a ferocious storm and I have no doubt there will be an analysis done after the event, once all of the power is restored and the clean-up is completed. I’ve no doubt the Irish Government will be examining the response to see if there are any lessons to be learned,” he said.
Ireland has only requested help under the EU’s civil protection mechanism on two previous occasions. The first was during the early weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic, to help fly Irish citizens home from Peru, India and Nigeria. The second time was a request for supplies of mpox vaccines, to respond to an outbreak in 2022.
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