Storms leave thousands without phone lines or power

More than 8,500 homes were left without telephone lines tonight as strong gales and heavy rains continued to hit the country.

As engineers battle to restore services across the country, eircom said weather conditions are hampering emergency works.

Meanwhile, ESB has vowed that power will be restored to 5,000 homes still left without electricity by nightfall.

Met Éireann has warned that south to southwest winds will reach gale force again this evening with heavy and persistent rain expected from the west.

Snow and sleet are due to fall in some northern areas.

Eircom said the high winds and heavy rain caused extensive damage to the network across the country.

“As a result of the ongoing stormy conditions, some customers are experiencing loss or disruption to their telephone service,” said a spokeswoman.

“There are over 8,500 telephone faults nationwide with the worst hit areas including parts IN the North West, South West, Connacht and the Carlow, Kilkenny and Tipperary regions.”

She said more than 6,000 faults were reported in the last two days, but while crews cleared 2,000 faults yesterday, the continued bad weather resulted in further customer fault reports.

The telephone company has put in place its Storm Recovery Plan, with all emergency crews deployed and staff from other areas of the business re-directed to assist the repair teams.

“eircom crews continue to work in extremely harsh weather conditions to restore service to as many customers as soon as possible,” she continued.

“Our crews worked through last weekend and will work through the coming weekend also.

“We estimate at this stage that it will be early next week before service can be restored to some customers.”

The stormy conditions also disrupted power supplies in many parts of the country, with around 3,500 homes in the North left without electricity.

“At its height between 15,000 to 20,000 customers were without electricity,” said an ESB spokesman.

“The majority of those were in the north west of the country.

“About 5,000 customers across the country are still without power, but they will have power back by tonight.”