Water outages hit several counties

Water outages have been reported across several counties as local authorities work to secure supplies.

Among the worst affected areas are counties Cork, Clare, Wexford, Dublin and Kildare.

Senior engineer at the water department of Clare County Council Seán Ward says the shortages have come about for several reasons, including burst pipes in homes, leaks and burst pipes in the county council's own systems and people leaving taps running.

Meanwhile, Munster is seeing driving rain and gusts of over 100 kilometres an hour this morning, giving rise to the possibility of localised flash flooding, as melting snow swamps mountain rivers.

Many schools will reopen today, but others - particularly where weekend snow caused chaos - will remain closed.