ESB CREWS WORKED late into last night, managing to restore power to 35,000 homes, but 25,000 remain in the dark following the week’s storms.

Today, additional crews will be redeployed from areas where power supplies have been restored in recent days to the worst affected areas, including Tralee, Newcastlewest, Fermoy, Dunmanway, Killarney, Bandon and Waterford.

The latest estimates of when electricity supplies will be restored to towns and villages around the country can be found here. Updates will be provided as they become available during the day.

ESB says that repairs today will be slow.

“Although ESB Networks has made steady progress in repairing faults in recent days, the speed of the restoration process is likely to slow down today as the average number of customers affected by each individual fault drops.

“Many of the remaining faults have been caused by trees falling on lines, which will require significant manual labour to repair. It could take up to half a day to fix a fault that is only affecting two or three customers.”

The electricity supplier says that they appreciate the patience of customers, who have been without power since Wednesday’s stormy weather.

“ESB Networks appreciates the patience that customers have shown at this very difficult time and apologises for the inconvenience caused.

“Almost 3,000 network technicians, linesmen and engineers are deployed in the field, and the customer contact centre is fully resourced to handle calls 24/7. Managers, planners and dispatchers are also working around the clock.”

Elsewhere, around 30,000 people are without phone and broadband services.

Water

In Limerick, only one public water scheme in County Limerick is now facing water restrictions.

The local authority, acting on the advice of the Health Service Executive and as agents of Irish Water, introduced a precautionary boil water notice across County Limerick on Thursday after extensive power outages affected water pumping stations and treatment plants.

However, following the restoration of power across the County and subsequent water quality testing, the Council says that only 475 people served by the Fedamore public water scheme are now required to boil water prior to consumption. The precautionary measure is expected to be lifted during the coming days.

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