asked the Minister for Transport and Power if he is aware that there were several electricity power failures in the Terenure-Rathfarnham-Templeogue area in Dublin in recent months with consequent loss and inconvenience to consumers and disruption of and danger to traffic; if he will hold a public inquiry into the cause of the failures; whether the ESB are under any liability to compensate persons who have suffered loss as a consequence of such failures; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - County Dublin Power Failures.
9.
I am informed by the Electricity Supply Board that in recent months there were five interruptions of supply affecting groups of consumers in the Terenure-Rathfarnham-Templeogue area in Dublin. Two were caused by insulator flashover, one by an underground cable fault, one by a defective trip fuse and one by overload on the local low voltage network. The outages varied from 20 to 80 minutes; the supply to most of the affected consumers was restored well within these times and the great majority of the consumers would have been affected only once.
It will be appreciated that it is technically impossible to provide a distribution system which would never be subject to interruption. It is coincidental that a number of faults should have occurred in this area recently but their nature was such that they could not have been avoided either at the planning stage or subsequently.
Though it is of great importance to the Board to see that supply is given without interruption, they cannot be held responsible for failures, variations or defects of supply or for consequential damages. This is made clear in the Board's General Conditions Relating to Supply.
I see no necessity to hold a public inquiry into the cause of these failures.