Updated 21:15

THOUSANDS OF HOUSEHOLDS and businesses are without phone or broadband services this evening as the fall-out from the bad weather continues.

Around 12,000 Eircom customers are without service due to the adverse weather conditions over the past 24 hours, while ESB crews have been working around the clock to restore power to some 4,000 customers.

And there’s more bad news on the way: Eircom says that it expects the number of customers without service to rise as the volume of reported faults continues to increase, with some customers in Cork, Kerry, Galway and Mayo having to wait up to one week before their service is restored.

Cork has been worst affected with more than 1,700 homes and businesses across the city and county currently without service. Galway, Kerry and Waterford have also been badly hit.

Eircom that it has received reports of 22,000 faults in the past 14 days due to the ‘unprecedented’ sustained severe weather. The company has 700 repair crews around the country working to restore services with some staff from the eastern part of the country to be mobilised to work in the west where services have been badly hit.

ESB said tonight that it has restored electricity supply to more than 4,000 customers who had been affected by last night’s storm.

The worst affected areas had been in parts of Galway, Kerry, Wexford, Carlow and Donegal.

Customers of both companies have been urged to report faults as soon as possible. Eircom customers can do so on the ‘Log a fault’ section of the website or by ringing 1901 while ESB customers can check the PowerCheck app or ESBPowerCheck.ie to see if outages have been identified and logged, or ring 1850 372 999.

Coastal areas all around Ireland were battered by strong winds and high tides overnight with serious flooding affecting roads, car parks, homes and businesses.

More high tides are due this evening and this weekend and people have been asked to be careful in coastal areas.

Originally published 5.09pm

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Read: Road closures, clean-ups… and bad weather set to continue >

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