
Ireland must accelerate electricity investment after storm damage, PM says
DUBLIN, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Ireland must speed up substantial investment in its electricity grid to prepare for future weather events after 74,000 homes, farms and businesses remained without power a week after Storm Eowyn battered the country, Prime Minister Micheál Martin said.
ESB Networks, the country's energy provider, has restored power to 694,000 homes and businesses with the help of crews from Europe but says some customers, many in remote locations, will remain in the dark until Feb. 6.
The recently re-elected government has already pledged a major capital investment programme to fix creaking infrastructure, partly through the use of a 14 billion euro ($14.52 billion) Apple AAPL.O tax windfall.
"I have already asked for work to be done to accelerate investment in the (electricity) grid, to future proof it and make it more resilient," Martin told reporters on Friday.
"There will be a need for really substantial investment in our electricity grid into the future because if you look over the last 10 years, the number and severity of storms of this kind is growing," Martin said. "Climate change is now having an impact to a significant degree in our country."
($1 = 0.9643 euros)

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Reuters
14 minutes ago
- Reuters
Denmark picks French, German and Norwegian air defence suppliers
COPENHAGEN, June 10 (Reuters) - Denmark will acquire short-range air defence systems from MBDA France, Germany's Diehl Defence and Kongsberg Gruppen ( opens new tab of Norway, the Nordic country's defence ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in February ordered the military to go on a buying spree to beef up the country's defences in preparation for potential future Russian aggression in Europe. Denmark will spend over six billion Danish crowns ($919 million) on the artillery acquisition, with the first deliveries expected in 2026, the defence ministry said. Denmark received 10 offers, including from suppliers in Turkey, Israel and Italy, and decided in the end to buy systems from French and German suppliers and to lease one from Norway's Kongsberg, it added. ($1 = 6.5304 Danish crowns)


Reuters
14 minutes ago
- Reuters
China is only 3-6 months behind US in AI, Trump official says
WASHINGTON, June 10 (Reuters) - China is three to six months behind the United States in artificial intelligence, White house AI and crypto czar David Sacks said Tuesday at an event in Washington, warning that excess U.S. AI regulation could damage American innovation in the industry. "China is not years and years behind us in AI. Maybe they're 3-6 months,' said Sacks, speaking at the AWS summit in Washington. "It's a very close race."


Reuters
19 minutes ago
- Reuters
US energy loan office should fund oil, gas, White House aide says
WASHINGTON, June 10 (Reuters) - The U.S. Energy Department's loan office should fund oil and gas infrastructure, a White House aide said on Tuesday. "One of the big problems is, in the past the ... loan program office has been used for a lot of these renewable projects," Jarrod Agen, a deputy assistant to the president and executive director of the National Energy Dominance Council, said at a Politico conference on energy. The Loan Programs Office grew rapidly under former President Joe Biden, thanks to legislation passed during his term, and has hundreds of billions of dollars in loan and loan guarantee capacity. Agen said the administration is changing the priority of the LPO, which is meant to help finance emerging energy projects that show promise but face difficulties getting bank loans. "So, yes, we want to invest more and prioritize projects that are oil and gas-related, nuclear-related," Agen said. President Donald Trump's new energy dominance council has focused on increasing already record-high oil and gas output and cutting climate and pollution regulations on fossil fuels. In his first term, Trump only used the LPO to finance the Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia. The Trump administration wants to offer tens of billions of dollars in LPO financing over the next two years to projects developing nuclear and geothermal power and minerals used in everything from wind and solar power to weapons systems, according to the White House budget for fiscal 2026. Republicans in the House have pushed to slash LPO's lending.