I thank the committee for the opportunity to discuss the impact on transport of the recent severe weather and the response to it. I wish to convey my sincere thanks, and that of Government, to all those people in public bodies who worked hard to respond to the recent prolonged period of severe weather. Particular thanks are due to front-line staff in local authorities, public transport companies and others who kept roads open, bus and rail services running and the airports open, by and large. They worked long hours in difficult conditions and they are a true example of what public service means. I thank the NRA, particularly for its role in sourcing and management of salt stocks when that became a problem in the latter part of December. I also thank the Garda, Defence Forces, HSE and Civil Defence staff who made an excellent contribution. While the severe weather brought out many people complaining about what was being done, it also brought out many individuals and community and voluntary organisations who played an invaluable role during the period by helping elderly neighbours to clear snow and ice, visiting housebound neighbours to ensure they had food and heat and manning telephone helplines.
Finally, I thank the members of the national emergency co-ordination group, in particular, Mr. Seán Hogan, the chairman, who has given the State sterling service during both the recent severe weather and the earlier flooding. As national director of fire and emergency management in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and chairman of the group that prepared the major emergency management framework, he is uniquely qualified to chair the national co-ordination group. The office of local authority management provided very effective liaison between the co-ordinating group and local authorities.
The cold weather started on 17 December and lasted until the middle of last week. It was characterised by extremely low temperatures over a long period, with a widespread incidence of snow and ice. Thankfully, such prolonged periods of cold weather are extremely rare. The last such occurrences in Ireland were the winters of 1963 and 1978-79. We had a blizzard and lower temperatures in January 1982 which caused widespread disruption but the thaw set in within a week. The winter of 1947 was both severe and of long duration. I am told by my father that the winter of 1933 was even worse with snow in May. It should be clear, therefore, that such prolonged severely cold weather is extremely rare and it is my understanding that climate change will not increase the frequency of such prolonged extreme cold.
I hope we can use this meeting to have a constructive discussion on what went right during the recent severe weather, what lessons we can learn and what changes we need to make to address these lessons. The national co-ordinating committee has commenced a review of the response and I hope the discussion will provide a positive and constructive contribution to that essential review work.
The first question I want to consider is what went well. By and large, our national roads, other key strategic roads and public transport routes, totalling 14,000 km, were kept open for traffic over the 24 days that this severe weather lasted. I acknowledge driving conditions were sometimes difficult but this is a natural consequence of severe weather. These roads carry an estimated 60% of total traffic and approximately 80% of commercial traffic. With careful driving, most of our secondary road network remained passable through the period, with limited exceptions, particularly in upland areas. Road and footpath conditions were difficult and dangerous where iced over but most people were able to get about as they needed to, albeit perhaps more slowly.
The majority of Dublin Bus services continued to operate throughout the period. A small number of services did not operate and there were curtailments of varying scale but a good service was provided on the core network. The exception to this was the evening of 6 January where services were withdrawn because of poor road conditions and concerns for passenger and driver safety. Bus Éireann operated the majority of its services. There were local cancellations and some services were delayed or curtailed. The websites of both companies provided excellent, regularly updated information on service impacts. Irish Rail and Luas services were largely unaffected and additional capacity was provided where possible.
Food and fuel supplies were maintained. The emergency services continued to operate, though response times were affected. Assistance from the Defence Forces was required on a number of occasions to access people in need of help. Hospitals continued to function effectively, though some elective procedures were postponed due to the poor weather and the increased incidence of weather-related accidents.
While the general picture is positive, I acknowledge there were individual instances of hardship caused by the extended cold spell, which lasted three and a half weeks. Many people suffered falls on ice, resulting in fractures, sprains and other injuries. While the frost and snow is becoming a memory for many, the injured have a legacy of the severe weather. Many, particularly older people, were housebound and some people were cut off. A number of areas and individual households were left without water or with reduced pressure, even more so as the thaw set in. Farmers and others working outdoors faced major difficulties as the cold weather became more severe with the passing days.
I refer to the lessons we can learn from this experience. Both central and local government have begun a review of their response to the effects of the severe weather to ascertain what changes are required for the future and to learn from those many examples of best practice. We will examine the timing of the activation of the emergency co-ordination structures to establish if earlier activation would have materially affected the response at an operational level. We will also review the effectiveness of those structures, once activated. We will urgently review the priorities for gritting of roads. Currently, the priorities are national roads and other roads that carry significant traffic volumes, including heavy goods vehicles and public transport services. In all, 14,000 km. of road were gritted every day and sometimes twice or three times a day over the 24 days. More than 261 gritting trucks and 180 snow ploughs were deployed during the severe weather, often late at night and early morning. Approximately 60,000 tonnes of salt was spread over the period, more than the total annual average use in recent years.
It will never be practical to grit all 96,000 km of our public road network, which is extensive by European standards. We currently grit over 14% of that network and it is unlikely to be justifiable to increase this substantially. However, we can examine whether there are ways of harnessing community effort by, for example, local authorities supplying salt to local communities and business districts. This would involve additional cost for the taxpayer at a time of severe constraints on public finances and may not be justified given the infrequent incidence of prolonged severe weather. I welcome comments from the committee on that. Given the biggest legacy of the cold are the people injured in falls on ice, I would also welcome the views of the committee on the imposition of a statutory obligation on householders and businesses in urban areas to clear snow and ice from footpaths outside their premises without incurring any liability for negligence. While, similar to the national primary roads, local authority staff were deployed to clear the busiest footpaths in urban areas, it is not practical for them to clear all the footpaths in urban areas. Dublin city alone has 2,500 km of footpaths.
Local authorities typically maintain ten days' supply of salt for gritting the prioritised roads and this is more than adequate for most years. Cold spells of this long duration are rare. Nevertheless, we will consider the costs and benefits of maintaining a supply to cover a longer period. This would involve more expenditure on salt supplies and salt barns to protect it. Members might like to consider whether this warrants higher priority than other road maintenance expenditure because this will come out of the roads budget.
We will look at how public information was handled and what can be improved. Local authorities made very effective use of local and community radio. The public transport websites were excellent and regularly up to date. Some local authority websites provided detailed road gritting maps. The RSA was very helpful in getting out targeted road safety messages. We will seek to build on those best practice examples and identify any information gaps or failures.
I am conscious that both the NRA and local authorities have, and will continue to incur, significant additional expenditure as a direct result of this prolonged severe weather. My Department does not have an emergency financial reserve. We allocate all the road grants we get from the Exchequer, but advise local authorities to set aside contingency sums within their overall roads funding for weather related works. Local authorities and the NRA are calculating the additional costs involved over and above the normal provision.
I will assess this when deciding on the allocation of regional and local road grants, as will the NRA in respect of national roads. It may be necessary to change priorities in the 2010 allocations, taking account of the financial resources available to me. I look forward to hearing the constructive views and suggestions of the committee.
