Updated 3.23pm

POWER HAS BEEN restored in Dublin city centre after outages affected thousands of people earlier this afternoon.

Dublin City Council’s civic offices were among the buildings affected, while traffic lights were also out of use in some areas of Dublin 1 and 2.

The affected areas included near the National Museum of Ireland, Trinity College, Chester Beatty Library, and Christ Church Cathedral.

ESB Networks said the issues were due to a “large fault” in the Dublin 1 and Dublin 2 areas, arising from a connection to a transformer in Temple Bar.

However, its powercheck.ie site now shows that the faults are no longer affecting people in the city centre.

Speaking on RTÉ’s News at One, ESB operations manager Derek Hynes said it is likely the issue arose due to construction works.

He said: “It is currently affecting around 4,600 businesses and homes in the Dublin 1 and 2 area.”

“We’re very conscious of the commercial impact of businesses affected, and also traffic,” he said. “We’re going to prioritise restoration as soon as we can.”

With reporting from Sean Murray