COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, January 12, 2026

QUESTION NO. 22

QUESTION: Councillor J. Sinnott

To ask the Chief Executive to outline the additional cost and work that has been required by South Dublin County Council to clean up after the significant number of storms that have occurred over the winter 2025 period.

REPLY:

There have been four severe weather events over the winter 2025 period, from January to December 2025, thus far, for which SDCC’s Severe Weather Assessment Team (SWAT) was activated:

• Storm Eowyn, a red status wind and rain event, which occurred on 24^th Approximately 220 incidents were reported to SDCC to address during the event.
• Storm Amy which occurred on the 4^th October 2025. This was a yellow rainfall event but was initially treated as an orange status event as it was flagged that the status may have been elevated to orange.
• An Orange Status Rainfall event on the 14^th November 2025, associated with Storm Claudia. 116 incidents were reported to SDCC to address during the event.
• Storm Bram, an orange status wind event, on the 9^th December 2025. 33 incidents were reported to SDCC to address during the event.

Work in advance of these events was incorporated into normal working hours. These included holding Severe Weather Assessment Team meetings, assessing the readiness of the Council to respond to any incidents that might arise, and mitigation works to reduce the impacts of expected rainfall, including the cleaning of screens on the stormwater network, street sweeping to remove build-up of leaves and targeted gully cleaning, etc.

The additional work required to address all incidents arising was managed as part of the daily workload and resources where possible. As such, these resources, staff and fleet for example, are not assigned a financial cost. However, these additional works impacted on resources for the ongoing council workload.

 The additional costs incurred in 2025 are in the region of €153,212, not including the costs expected due to ongoing housing repairs, as set out below.

• Public Realm Operations incurred additional costs of €59,500 during Storm Eowyn. For the other storm events staffing overtime costs during storms periods of approximately €10,100 was incurred. Public Realm Crews typically worked at addressing storm damage to trees resulting from high winds and localised flooding in SDCC Parks. In the days following the storm, crews typically are diverted from normal planned maintenance to continue the clean-up operations. The costs of redeployment and delays to other works are not captured but are considered as part of the annual costs and work load for the section.

• Natural Water Team incurred staff overtime costs in the region of €3,740 to undertaken stormwater network screen cleaning and surface water removal during the Orange Status rainfall event in November.

• Housing Department incurred an additional costs totalling €47,794 for repairs and remedial works following Storm Eowyn. There are 83 work orders associated with the other three events, all relating to roof damage, which have been issued to five area response contractors. 

• Roads Maintenance incurred additional costs of approximately €32,078 to address issues on regional and local roads. This comprised of:
  • Storm Eowyn: €16,013 (including €1,923 for public lighting works)
  • Storm Amy costs were approx.: €7,225.
  • Orange Status Rainfall event 14^thNov 2025 costs were approx.: €5,370.
  • Storm Bram costs were approx.: €3,470