The country remains under a nationwide weather warning for snow and ice as Uisce Éireann and ESB Networks crews work to restore supply to people cut off by the bad weather.
The yellow warning, issued by Met Éireann, will be in effect until noon on Tuesday but there is an expectation weather warnings will be upgraded to an orange level for some areas.
A yellow warning for low temperature for the entire country is in effect until 12am on Friday. The forecaster said Tuesday night will be bitterly cold, with lowest temperatures ranging from -3 to -8 degrees.
Gerry Murphy, meteorologist with Met Éireann, said it is “most likely” weather warnings would be upgraded to an orange level in coming days. “That yellow level low temperature warning will be up to an orange level warning for some, and much of the country,” he said.
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Damage wreaked by the bad weather is being felt in the south in particular where in Co Kerry, heavy snowfall caused the roof of the Tralee Regional Sports and Leisure Complex to collapse on Monday morning. Used by clubs and schools the complex has over 300,000 visits a year.
Jim Finucane, chair of the management board of the sports complex, said nobody was in the building at the time. “It is intended to carry out an assessment of the building to determine the next steps.”
In Charleville, Co Cork, a roof covering an outdoor terrace at Geary’s Bar, a family-owned pub, also collapsed under the weight of snow. The collapse caused thousands of euro in damage, according to Corina Gough, general manager at the pub.
Keith Leonard, director of the National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management, said hazardous travel conditions will continue for “much of the week”, with more wintry showers and extremely low temperatures expected in the days ahead.
Uisce Éireann is working to restore water supplies to 30,000 people in Cork, Limerick, Kerry, Tipperary and Dublin. A further 27,000 people were at risk of losing supply, a spokeswoman said, due to low reservoir levels in these counties as well as Wexford and Laois.
Freezing conditions are “likely to cause ongoing impacts on water supplies over the coming week”, the spokeswoman said.
Similarly, the ESB had made considerable progress in restoring power to customers impacted by outages brought on by cold snap, although 17,000 homes, farms and businesses were still cut off at 9pm on Monday. The majority of those still without power were based in counties Kerry, Limerick and Tipperary.
On Sunday and again on Monday members of the Defence Forces were deployed to assist ESB crews in their efforts, according to Mr Leonard.
The ESB said power restoration efforts will likely continue for a number of days in worst affected areas “due to the hazardous weather conditions and accessibility challenges”.
Some schools in Co Carlow will remain closed on Tuesday and closures are expected to continue over the coming days in the counties worst affected by the cold weather, with the Department of Education again saying the decision is one for individual schools to make on the basis of pupil safety.
The “vast majority” of the country’s 4,000 schools were said to have opened on Monday, but closures were reported in 15 counties with the likes of Cork, Tipperary and Kilkenny among those most severely affected.
The Health Service Executive (HSE) said that there will be further cancellation of hospital appointments this week due to the severe weather. Most hospitals across the health service were operating as normal on Monday but in areas most affected by the wintry weather there were cancellations.
In University Hospital Kerry all non-urgent clinical appointments, all outpatient appointments and all dental services were cancelled on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. The hospital said these appointments would be rescheduled.
The cold snap has come at a time when the country is experiencing a surge in winter illnesses such as influenza. As of Monday morning there were 833 people with flu in hospital.
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