The head of one of Ireland's main farming groups has proposed that basic maintenance of hedgerows and trees overhanging power and communications cabling should be contracted out to trained local farmers.
Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) President Denis Drennan has said the damage caused by Storm Éowyn "must signal the end of the delusion that the ESB and other operators are able to maintain to an acceptable basic degree the vast networks of poles and overhead wires running across the country and through farmers' fields".
He said: "We have had a reality check, and that means accepting the need to change the system around power-line management that Storm Éowyn so completely exposed as no longer feasible or effective."
Mr Drennan added that "this is not a reflection on the competence of the ESB or other service providers, but rather a factual observation that so vast and disparate a system – extending into every boreen in the State – could not be maintained centrally in the face of more frequent and more intense storms".
The ICMSA represents around 16,000 dairy and livestock farmers across the country.
Mr Drennan said local farmers are "best positioned to monitor the threat presented by trees".
He said that given that their communities and homes are the ones "most vulnerable to the kind of power loss we are now contemplating - and experiencing - it's certainly worth the ESB and the Government looking at ways whereby interested farmers, after appropriate training, could monitor and carry out the basic maintenance of hedgerows under power lines".
The number of homes, farms, and businesses without power in the immediate aftermath of Storm Éowyn last month reached 768,000.
That figure has been reduced to just under 10,000.
The ESB has said it wants to work with stakeholders, in future to ensure any tree growth does not adversely impact its customers.
However, the company said amid the restoration process following Storm Éowyn, it has been getting reports of individuals taking it upon themselves to clear trees around downed power lines.
It is asking people not to do this and leave it to its highly trained experts to complete this clearance work.
The ESB said it has had to divert resources to deal with this, which is causing a backlog in the power restoration process and is even leading to incidents where customers' power has been knocked out once again.
