Storm Darragh: Thousands of premises may remain without electricity until end of week

Sixty technicians from France arrive to assist with each fix restoring only eight to ten premises each

Storm Darragh was the most powerful to cross the country in more than four years. Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish Times
Storm Darragh was the most powerful to cross the country in more than four years. Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish Times

Fifteen thousand premises remain without power in the State and some may not see it restored until the end of the week, ESB Networks has admitted.

Sixty technicians from France arrived in the country yesterday to assist in restoring power along with teams from Northern Ireland Electricity.

At the height of Storm Darragh last weekend almost 400,000 premises were without power mostly along the Western seaboard.

Storm Darragh was the most powerful to cross the country in more than four years and generated gusts in excess of 110km/h in many places.

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Speaking on Morning Ireland, ESB Networks customer delivery manager Brian Tapley said he hoped the company could restore power to most premises by the end of today, but others will have to wait.

He explained that they are now down to low-voltage network faults, which means that fixing faults will only see power restored to between eight and 10 premises each.

“We are at the really difficult part of the storm restoration,” he said. “Realistically it will be the end of the week. Each fault takes a bit of time to remove the debris and repair it and only a small amount of customers are restored.”

Mr Tapley explained that there is a reciprocal agreement between Ireland, the UK and France in terms of assisting in power restoration. During Storm Ciarán a team of ESB staff assisted in restoring power to 1.2 million customers in France.

Damage done to the port of Holyhead is causing delays for Irish hauliers bringing goods to the UK and the EU. BM Transport manager Darren Murphy said he has 80 lorries waiting to travel to the port.

He described the situation as a “disaster” as there is very little capacity on other routes to make up for the closure of Holyhead.

“Nothing has moved in Holyhead for four days. We have trucks sitting on the busiest week of the year unable to move,” he said.

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy is a news reporter with The Irish Times