Mass North West power and water outages after Storm Eowyn could have been eased if the government had acted sooner.

That's according to MEP Ciaran Mullooly, after it emerged that Europe could have provided assistance had the Irish government requested it before the storm hit.

The devastating effects of the storm in January of this year left many without basic necessities for weeks.

MEP Mullooly says lessons must be learned from this and cannot happen again: