Kerry County Council’s dedicated emergency phone number received 150 calls during Sunday’s storm.
The county was under an orange wind warning for 12 hours, starting at 5 o’clock on Sunday evening, with significant damage reported on roads and buildings around the county.
At this month’s meeting of Kerry County Council, some elected members questioned why the fire service was not tasked to incidents during Storm Isha.
The council’s Chief Executive, Moira Murrell, said this was down to established procedures with prioritisation by each individual event, and that she refused to be cornered with these questions.
In the Chief Executive’s report to the meeting, Moira Murrell outlined the tough conditions the county has experienced since the beginning of the winter maintenance season.
This includes Storm Gerrit, two cold weather periods, and the storm on Sunday.
She said the salting operation was active on 23 occasions, with double salting on nine nights, using a total of 2,800 tonnes of salt.
Moira Murrell said Sunday’s storm was very significant, and the call centre received 150 calls, the highest in quite a while for one storm.
Councillors Mike Kennelly, Jackie Healy-Rae, and Tom Barry all told the meeting they had been informed gardaí requested the assistance of the fire service on multiple occasions, and were told they would not be sent out.
Council CEO Moira Murrell said the response to these events depends on the severity of each event, some which were life threatening, and some which were not.
She said there were fires, and there were trees on top of cars, which require different responses to clearing big branches from a road.
Moira Murrell said you have to look at what’s in front of you, but also deal with the “what if”, and the potential for a big fire, or significant flooding.
Upon further questioning from councillors specific to the fire service, Moira Murrell said she is not going to give answers on emergency situations.
She said management of staff is an executive function based on established procedures within the organisation.
She said she is not going to be cornered in a meeting giving answers with information that specific relating to emergency situations.
