According to industry quotes, this is likely to cost more than €200,000.
City finance officials informed councillors they must also borrow money to pay for ground works necessary to reconnect street lighting in several neighbourhoods still dark more than four months after the hurricane-force storm.
“There are at least six estates that need significant expenditure on lighting across the city after the storm, and we will have to take funds from other projects to pay for it,” city finance director Helen Kilroy told councillors this week. “We’ll replenish those budgets when we get a loan,” she added.
Councillors Donal Lyons (Ind ), Terry O’Flaherty (Ind ), Declan McDonnell (Ind ) and John McDonagh (Lab ) highlighted areas in Renmore, Wellpark, Ballybane, Beach Court, Seamount and Hawthorn Place still without lighting.
Sharon Connolly, the council’s Parks Department senior engineer, told councillors the local authority had lost 3,000 trees in storms Darragh and Éowyn last winter. She said specialist contractors must remove 800 tree stumps to allow replanting, but also to repair many privately and publicly owned walls damaged by uprooted trees.
Tree clearance has concluded in Barna Woods - expected to re-open in the coming days - but council staff have not yet tackled Merlin Woods, part of which is on the HSE’s Merlin Park campus.
Councillor Shane Forde (FG ) informed the June plenary meeting that a falling tree caused serious injury to a walker in Merlin Woods last week, and that an ambulance struggled to gain access through locked gates.
Parks officials said an operative was on site within 15 minutes to unlock a gate for the ambulance, and that enquiries are being made to the HSE which should have keys to the park gates.
Meanwhile, city housing director Lieze Fanning said all 617 council-owned homes damaged by Storm Éowyn have now been inspected. More than 200 roofs were repaired, and 94 fences or walls replaced. She warned 322 houses still need repairs.
In February, city accountants estimated immediate Storm Éowyn repairs would cost the local authority at least €15m, equivalent to more than 10 per cent of the city’s annual operating budget.
As the full impact of the hurricane has been revealed, damage to underground electric cabling ripped up by tree roots is expected to cost more than €10m alone as out-of-date connections must be replaced for 1,100 street lights on older circuits.
The city council pays around €2.5m per year in buildings insurance, and this premium is expected to soar next year after multiple storm-related claims.
The final bill for Storm Éowyn will not be known until the clean-up is complete by the end of the year.
Speaking after the June council meeting, Cllr Lyons said a central government emergency agency needs to be established to help local authorities, similar to the USA’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA ) which assists American state administrations struck by disaster.
“Local authorities simply can not afford to fund the impact of these extreme events, especially if we are expected to experience them more frequently,” he said.
