The party's spokesperson on Agriculture, Rural and Community Development, Martin Kenny TD, commended the local authorities, ESB crews, Uisce Éireann workers and volunteers for their "trojan work" to restore power and water supplies following the recent impact of Storm Darragh, although he believes more could have been done to minimise the damage ahead of time.
"In most cases trees falling on lines is the reason for power outages," said Teachta Kenny.
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"With more of these big storms and weather events, power outages are becoming too common and we need to be doing more to prevent power outages.
"I am calling on the ESB, forestry companies and forestry owners to take responsibility for ensuring trees are cut back so that they cannot fall on power lines.
"Our electricity network is a vital piece of infrastructure for the country and it needs to be protected."
He continued: "It is my understanding that ESB is given wayleaves to cut trees that are a danger to power lines in all new forest plantations for the last 20 years or so.
"There may be older forest plantations that they don't have wayleaves for. There needs to be investment in protecting the electricity network by the ESB and ensuring that all power lines are protected from falling trees."
Teachta Kenny also stated that forest companies or owners should be forced to grant wayleaves to ESB in locations where they do not have them, or alternatively, be responsible for cutting back the trees from the power lines themselves.
