Éowyn fallout leaves the west feeling unseen

The people across the north and west of the country felt unseen and ignored because only one senior cabinet position was handed to the eight counties of Connacht and Ulster.

Recent events have only strengthened that feeling for the 900,000 people who live in the vast region west of the Shannon and north of it (over a million if Clare, also senior minister-less, is added in).

Storm Éowyn was something the Government could do nothing about. We can’t control the weather. But as we approach the 14-day mark since those winds hit, and hit the north and west hardest, thousands remain without power.

Everyone knows the emergency services are doing everything they can. But people stranded without power or water do feel there isn’t the same sense of urgency compared to if this had happened in Dublin.

It’s impossible to know, but the feeling exists that if a storm of this magnitude had hit Dublin and its people, the response would have carried a more visible sense of urgency.

The army would be out on the streets by day 14 en masse, ensuring that everybody had some kind of access to water and power.

Donald Trump would be forgotten, with rolling 24-hour news coverage of those without power and nothing else. People would be demanding a commitment to immediately put the entire power grid underground.

Paddy Hayes, the ESB CEO, has warned that “there is a cost associated by this that will ultimately be borne across the electricity network as a whole”.

That is a clear warning of higher electricity prices across the board. Farmers would wish they had the same power to pass on input cost increases, rather than seeing them encroach on their margin.

Ironically, the farming sector perhaps least troubled by storm Éowyn is the most troubled by impending weather, price and margin. Tillage farmers have endured two very challenging years.

We are now moving into a spring that needs to buck the recent trend of “grab and go” farming. There is no reason to be pessimistic about the 2025 planting season in itself, but underneath the normal sanguine “we’ll take it as it comes” farmer approach, am I the only one who detects an edge of near desperation that dry conditions in March and early April see ground worked and crops established?

I saw a farmer ploughing and sowing beans on Saturday, in drizzle. Ground conditions were far from perfect, and it was ridiculously early to be panicking. But some farmers are looking at late-sown bean crops from last year still in the ground.

Dull price predictions, accumulated losses from 2023 and to a lesser extent 2024, and the muscle memory of a succession of sowing and harvesting seasons compromised by poor weather have nerves frayed.

Let’s all hope the power comes back on across the north-west soon, and that the power of the sun hits our fields over the next two months.